Poetry Those Winter Sundays By Robert Hayden English Literature Essay

Poetry Those Winter Sundays By Robert Hayden English Literature Essay Considered one of his best pieces of work, Robert Haydens Those Winter Sundays, is a heartfelt and moving poem. Haydens poem tells from a boys perspective of his father. In the poem it is obvious that there is a distance between the two and a clear gap of communication as well. But nearing the end of the poem we find that though ignorant of it at that moment, love is actually present. Although only a 14-line poem, Haydens poem packs remarkable power and meaning into each line, using tone and subtle symbolism to amplify the overall effect of the poem. The poem is broken down into three stanzas of 5, 4 and 5 lines, respectively. In the first stanza of the poem, the subject of the poem is established; the father. In the second stanza, the narrator is introduced into the poem and the atmosphere of the house is further described. In the third and final stanza, the narrator tells how he still speaks ungratefully to his father and then admits his ignorance of his fathers simple love. The father is described as a hardworking man with cracked hands that ached, who woke up on Sundays too in the blueback cold to make banked fires blaze which [drove] out the cold and he would [polish] [the narrators] good shoes as well before waking the rest of the house. But no one ever thanked him for doing such things. From labor in the weekday and with cracked hands that ached from labor it is understood that the father is a working man, possibly a laborer who uses his hands extensively in his field of work leading to the belief that the fathers job is m ost probably a low-income job and as such; Sundays are probably his only day off of work, and so he would be expected to sleep in but he doesnt. The simple phrase Sundays too à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ implies that the fathers actions took place on Sundays as well as on every other day of the week. (Johnson) The father wakes early in the morning in the blueback cold, the father would wake early at his own discomfort so that his son, the narrator, would not have to wake until a certain level of comfort had been attained in the house. Not only that but the father also polishes a pair of the narrators good shoes, showing that he has provided his son with more than one pair of shoes. But then why is it that even after providing such physical luxuries that no one ever thanked him? Why is it that the narrator still speak[s] indifferently to him? Is it because the narrator is an ungrateful son, taking his fathers work for granted? Looking closer, it is realized that it is not only the poet that doesn t ever [thank] him but that NO ONE ever thanked him (Gallagher). As such, the fault is shifted from son to father leading us to believe that there must be something about the way or the reason why the father performs his parental chores that creates or requires the apparent numbness in the speaker, even over the distance of the years. The child is [also] vaguely but certainly aware of the angers of that house, and à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ because the speaker in the poem does not know when the angers will erupt in the house, he is constantly in a state of terror that makes him speak indifferently to the fatherà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦(Gallagher) And so the blueblack cold may have another meaning, describing not the physical condition but the sadistic atmosphere of the house and father. The meaning behind the last two lines of Haydens poem; What did I know, what did I know of loves austere and lonely offices? remain somewhat vague, given that they close with a question rather than a definitive statement (Johnson) but they also tie in and close the great hurt of the [authors] recollection. (Gallagher) All of this leads back to the fact that at a younger age, the speaker is in doubt of his fathers love; as a child he presumes that love is expressed in slightly more clear ways. It is not until the speaker has grown considerably older that he realizes that love is not always expressed so visibly, but is often expressed wordlessly and indirectly, and he is then able to find this indirect and silent love in his fathers early morning actions. Though there is still a slightly gloomy mood at the end of the poem there is also a sense of resolution and closing. (Thomson) The speaker in the poem is a man reflecting on his boyhood and his fathers love for him. The speaker tells about his ignorance of his fathers simple love, expressed for him through his fathers early morning gestures. The poems tone shifts continuously throughout the poem, in the beginning the tone changes from a cold, harsh tone to a warmer, more comforting tone by line 6. Although by line 9; the poems tone shifts again to a more negative tenor. The bitter tone depicted in the first stanza is reflected through the blueblack cold[ness] of the house, the Fathers cracked hands and the fact that no one has ever thanked [the father]. By line 7; the house and rooms were warm and the tone has seemed to morph to a more consoling sentiment when the cold [is] splintering, breaking. Although the cold is gone and there is now warmth inside the house, the tone once again changes back to the bitter manner in line 9 when the chronic angers of that house are mentioned. (EE) The bitter tone is carrie d on until the end of the poem but the tone of the poem also takes on a sort of regretful spin when the poet asks in lines 13 14; What did I know, what did I know of loves austere and lonely offices? Hayden uses a great deal of symbolism in his poem, some obvious and others not so much. The very first symbol being winter, mentioned in the title of the poem; Those Winter Sundays. Some use winter to suggest death, as in Robert Frosts Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Some use it to suggest the absence of hope, as in C.S. Lewis The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ (Wikipedia) Winter births cold and darkness, both referred to in line 2 as the blueblack cold. The cold often symbolizes depression and the darkness almost always symbolizes death and destruction. Symbolism like this helps generate the negative tone the poet is trying to create. The fathers cracked hands symbolize labor and hard work but could also represent sickness or bad health. A final symbol in Haydens poem is the warmth. The warmth is possibly the only positive symbol used throughout the poem. The warmth often stands for happiness and harmony, much the opposite of the cold and darkness. Haydens poem incorporates tremendous meaning into each line of his poem, using varying tone and symbolism to help intensify the implications behind it. Delving into the very core of the meaning of the poem, behind the literal and sub-literal levels, the reader finds that what Hayden is trying to relay is that there are many different kinds of love and that saying I love you is not the only way to show affection but that love can be portrayed in the simplest of actions and through the subtlest of gestures in life.