Father Son Relationships In Robert Hayden's Those Winter Sundays

Fathers are recurring themes in these poems. By definition, "a father is a man in relation to his child or children." Parental relationships are complicated, but we mostly hear about fathers. Each poem expresses the speaker's relationship with their father. How they grew up, how they were treated, and how they will feel in the future. There are many complex feelings about fathers, as well as a poem by Robert Hayden and flashcards by Rita Dove. These two poems depict a very in-depth father-child relationship. In Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden talks about how his father always did things for him, such as warming up the house in the winter, but no one appreciated it, but as he grew older, he realized how much his father had done for him and his family. In Flash

In both poems, there are two sides to the relationship. For example, in Those Winter Sundays, it states, "then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze." This demonstrates how much the father does. Not only does he light the fireplace in the freezing cold, but he also does it on Sundays after a long, hard week because it says cracked hands, and he does it regardless of how tired or in pain he is, or whether anyone in his family thanks him. On the other hand, it says, "I would rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house,". There's a lot of anger in this family, either because the father is abusive or because the mother and father are having problems. It's telling us that there are two sides to this father and his family, and that even though he can appear caring by lighting a fire and warming the house, there's always tension in the house. In Flashcards, it states, "My father put up his feet after work and relaxed with a highball and The Life of Lincoln. After supper, we drilled