Those Winter Sundays - Research Paper Example

I think everybody is attached to their parents and we can easily relate our emotions through this poem. As a child we always rely on our parent’s assistance and support and we hardly feel thanking them for their help which is quite obvious with human nature. Similarly, here the speaker tells us about the limited communication with his father. And the only communication his family members ever had between them was through demonstration of anger. “Fearing the chronic angers of that house” tells the frustration and anger that the speaker was living in.

The speaker always felt his house as dull, lifeless, frustration and anger. He felt that the house was empty and there was nothing which can express love. May be he was too young to understand the complexities of a family. Now when he is older he understands the reason of anger and frustration. The poem reveals how difficult fatherhood is as the opening lines of the poem tells “Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in blueblack cold”. There are many literary poems made on the strong relationship of father and son.

There are famous literary poems made on this theme like Homer’s “The Odyssey” and “The Illiad”. Both poems show the affection of father for their sons even living apart. They hardly had interactions with their son but still they care for them. In this particular poem the speaker says that he has behaved “indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold”. Although he took care of the family but no one ever thanked him for his concern and abilities. This poem takes me back to my childhood days and I remember how my father took care of every minute things of my life.

Many times he tries to hide his emotions and love, but I can get the sense of affection through his caring attitude. I remember one day I was crying for a silly thing and how my father hugged me and pacified me with his words. Now when I recall those days I feel father is a special figure who can strain themselves for the well being of their family. Here in the speaker tells that his father never expressed the sense of affection verbally. But now he feels that his father is a strong man who never compromised his family, although he is tired “from labor in the weekday”.

Although tired he still makes it a point to do stuffs for his family. Hayden has used imagery to reach out to the readers and convey the message of fatherhood as he tries to picture the activities done by the father. That means even in the hard times of winter he wakes up early morning to warm the house for his children. The speaker also mentions that he wakes up only when the house is warm or when his father calls up. Despite of doing all these, the speaker tells that he never shown any affection towards his father.

And now when he is grown up he understood the love and affection of his father. In the last lines of the poem the speaker mentions that as a child he was unaware of father’s love through his behavior. – “what did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices”. He now regrets and whished if could thank his father for affection and care. Like the speaker I have also many times ignored my father’s gestures and rather appreciating him for his care and concern sometimes I neglected him.

But after reading the poem I feel it gives us a sense of regret for not understanding our parents. And this realization comes to us only when we reach