Those Winter Sundays

In the poem Those Winter Sundays, Robert Hayden talks about a boy's dad that does not get enough appreciation for what he does everyday. Unfortunately sometimes families are forced into hard situations in life barely keeping their head above water. During these times there can be someone in your family that is doing an abundance amount of work but is not being recognized. The poem is written with a topic of appreciation, theme of love, and a dreary tone.

Hayden's work talks about a topic that is commonly unnoticed in our world today. The topic is appreciation. Being appreciative can go a long way with someone in more ways than one. It shows the person you care and reminds them that they are helping people out. In return, more commonly than not, the action someone received will be given to them in the future. The boy is recognized as the speaker in this poem when it starts out with " Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached". These first opening lines explain that the Son is talking about his father and he also is telling the reader how much of a hardworking man he is. Following, Hayden writes, " When the rooms were warm, he'd call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house,” The boy is now realizing how much his father does for him and he is feeling sympathetic. He wishes he would be more appreciative towards him because he sees how upset his father is.

From the start of the poem, Robert Hayden portrayed a sad, dreary tone. In the beginning, he starts with “ Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.” This means the boy recognizes that his father gets up early everyday, even after a long hard week of work, to get the house warm before his son awakes. He realizes what his father does for him and he feels sorrow that his father is never thanked. The middle stanza continues, “ I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm, he’d call, and slowly I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house,” Much like the first stanza, the tone is still a sad regretful voice. The son tells us that when the house is warm, he will slowly rise because he has fear of his father’s anger. The father could be angry because of his son’s lack of appreciation and the stress coming from working all week long. He feels disrespected, almost as if this work is all he is good for. The last stanza ends with, “Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well. What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?” The ending of this poem really shows the full meaning of this poem. First, that love is involved in the work that the father is doing, love being the