Those Winter Sundays: Those Winter Sundays By Robert Hayden

As we get older we tend to reflect more on our life and get our priorities together. We tend to realize who and what is important, the people who mean the most to us and the ones we can’t live without. Who would those significant individuals be for us? For most people it would be their parents. In the poems “My Father’s Song” by Simon J. Ortiz, and “My Mother” by Ellen Bryant Voigt, both writers express their emotion towards a parent. The poems are similar in many ways simply because they share a parent child relationship, they are also vastly different. “My Fathers Song” is a poem about a son who lost his father and is grieving and referring back to old memories, reflecting on their past and the wonderful time he had with his father. “My Mother” on the other hand is a poem about a daughter who lost her mother and is having a difficult time coping as she reflects on the decisions she made as a child and how that affected her relationship with her mother. Despite their differences, the two poems share a true connection of love towards their parent. Most notably “My Fathers Song” and “My Mother” differ in the relationship with their parent, the settings in which the memories they hold of their parents take place, and who they are mourning over, yet the two have a strong emphasis on love.

In “Those Winter Sundays”, Robert Hayden introduces us to the theme of love unlike in any other poems. The theme of love in this poem is different from any other contemporary love themes because here, Hayden doesn’t talk about the amorously affectionate emotion between young lovers like Romeo and Juliet, but the deep familial love between a parent and a child. This kind of love is not pretentious. Their love is not exhibited by kisses or hugs; while it may go unnoticed it is always in existence. Hayden showcases the love between the parent and a child as the most selfless and strongest love of them all. Hayden defines an unspoken love and offers us a glimpse into an ordinary father-child relationship by the use of literary elements such as sound, point of view of the speaker and imagery with vivid description that includes details that appeal to the senses.

Everyone has a father. No matter if the father is present in a child’s life or not, he still exists and takes that role. A father has a major impact on his child whether he knows it or not, and that impact and example shapes the child’s perspective on life, and on love. The authors, Robert Hayden and Lucille Clifton, share the impact of their fathers through poetry, each with their own take on how their fathers treated them. The poems “Forgiving My Father” and “Those Winter Sundays” have significant differences in the speaker’s childhood experiences, the tone of the works, and the imagery presented, which all relate to the different themes of each poem.

After reading the poem an issue I recognize was that this poem relates to my father.

Yet, she is filled with the sense of being a part of something important.  "It seemed to me that work . . . done out of doors, and in my father's service, was ritualistically important" (113).  She is contributing to the family income in her own way when each year she rakes the grass, carries water for the foxes, or cleans the watering dishes.  Her father may be stern, but he is proud of his tom-boy.  He remarks to a passing salesman, "Like to have you meet my new hired man." This praise from her father fills her with delight, "I turned away and raked furiously, red in the face with pleasure" (112).  Children need praise from their parents like they need food.

An ideal father should be someone who nurtures and lovingly cares for his offspring, and some kids are blessed by this opportunity growing up to spend time with their father, even if their parents are divorced. As the years go by our fathers grow older and we too grow old. We start to reminisce about the nostalgic times we had when we were young. In the poems “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, and “Tips From My Father” by Carol Ann Davis; the authors draw from different life events, in which each communicate a happy memory with their fathers to the audience, and conclude a common theme surrounding a bond with their fathers, which can be inferred through how the parents care about their kids and show affection to them by giving their

The Boys of Summer, a non-fiction book of baseball, written by Roger Kahn. Who tells a wonderful heart aching tale of a simple stick and ball game that helped start the development to push Americans (generally the white population at the time) to change what the country claims to be, a free and fair non-prejudice country that gives “everyone” their own rights/opportunities. Jackie Robinson, America’s first African American to play on a Major Baseball league. He was the first colored-skinned to ever make history not only in the game of baseball. Robinson ignited a spark that sent Americans (mostly the white population) dumbfounded, that a “nigga” a dark colored-skinned individual was more than just a janitor. This book transcends the generation gap as Kahn recaps his boyhood in Brooklyn, his young career as a writer following the Brooklyn Dodgers, and a follow-up of the certain members of the Brooklyn Dodgers during post-playing days. As Kahn nostalgically narrates his story of the transformation of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a dead team who came back to life to make a major impact on the country, to a becoming dead of the last time. Reveals the theme that race play a huge role on American’s reaction to the Brooklyn Dodger, Jackie Robinson, and the aftermath to letting a “Negro” into a white man sport.

In Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” tells of an individual reminiscing about their father and the sacrifices he made to provide for them. In the poem, the father was not appreciated for his contribution but the narrator seems to now acknowledge the hard work of the father. As the poem progresses the tone of the narrator is one of regret and remorse. The relationship of the parent and child is often one of misunderstanding and conflict until the experiences life more and come in grasps of the parent’s intention. So, the relation between a parent and child evolves as the child emerges to adulthood.

A father-child relationship can be a good thing for some people, and problematic for others. There are different types of fathers. There are fathers who are always around their children, who give unconditional love and guidance. Then there are hard-to-please fathers who drain their children with extremely high expectations, leading to a strained relationship. Moreover, there are fathers who cannot handle the responsibilities that come with fatherhood, this type of fathers walk out on the family when the situation gets tough. Many people see their fathers in one way as a child and grow to see them in a whole different light as adults. The richness and complexity of the child and father relationship are the reason many poets write about fatherhood and fathers.

Literature is defined as written works published on a particular subject. Literature can also be viewed as witness, because it can be a source of proof based on the events it was written on. Literature as witness allows readers to get a deeper understanding of the issues that have happened based off of what the books are about. Those who read literary texts such as historical novels, memoirs and novels are witness to historical events. These texts can be viewed as witness because the events mentioned are based off of true life events. Some may argue historical fiction is not real and therefore could not be viewed as a reliable source. Even though historical fiction is made up of fictional characters, the conflicts that are mentioned are based

In Song of Solomon, the father provokes fear in his children. Oddly, Milkman's sisters seem to look forward to the anger and tension of their father. Morrison writes, "The way he mangled their grace, wit, and self-esteem was the single excitement of their days...Without the tension and drama he(the father) ignited, they might not have known what to do with themselves" ,and the sisters "waited eagerly for any hint of him.(11)" Rather than expressing love for their children verbally, the father figures often show their love through actions and through providing for the children. We see an example of this in the poem "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden. The father in this poem wakes especially early in the morning to chop wood, start a fire, and make the house warm for his son. Despite the father's loving actions, the son speaks indifferently to him and never thanks him.

Tobias Wolff is a writer known for his memoirs and realistic short stories. “Hunters in the Snow” is a story about three friends, Tub, Frank, and Kenny, who go hunting in the snow. Wolff writes about humanity through the friendship of the three friends and the events they go through.

Being a child is one of the hardest stages in a person’s life. They go through doing all the wrong things in order to learn how to do the right things, and then they socially develop into a sensible mature adult. During this stage of a young child's life, the roles of parenting are absolutely crucial and determine a child’s role that he/she is going to play in society in the future. This is a crucial part of everyone’s life, they need to learn what they are good at and what they are not good at. In the poem "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden, there is a sense that the narrator does not have a special bond with his father when he was a young boy, and that there is a sense of fear toward his father. I

“Those Winter Sundays” written by Robert Hayden, depicts the ungratefulness that a young boy has towards his hardworking father. Later in the poem, as he matures, he begins to realize everything his father has done for him, and his feelings suddenly change. Throughout the poem, Hayden uses numerous examples of imagery, personification, and foreshadowing to show how the speaker’s attitude regarding his father transforms from the perspective of a child to the perspective of an adult.

Although everyone has a father, the relationship that each person has with his or her father is different. Some are close to their fathers, while some are distant; some children adore their fathers, while other children despise them. For example, in Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” Hayden writes about his regret that he did not show his love for his hardworking father sooner. In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” she writes about her hatred for her brute father. Despite both authors writing on the same topic, the two pieces are remarkably different. Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” have different themes that are assembled when the authors put their different uses of imagery, tone, and characterization together.