Life Exposed In Robert Hayden's Those Winter Sundays

Robert Hayden, an African American author and educator, grew up in the poor streets of Detroit, Michigan. Hayden was a foster child as a result of his dysfunctional biological family. However, being in a foster home was not much of an escape for him. He endured verbal and physical abuse from his foster parents. Because of experiencing such dysfunctionalities, Robert Hayden became socially isolated. There may seem like there is no good to his life’s story, but he then applied the negative energy he encountered, and emerged himself into the world of literature. Hayden loved to write poems about African Americans and reflect back on his childhood neighborhood. He is most known for his two famous works: The Middle Passage and Those Winter Sundays. In Those Winter Sundays, Hayden allows the speaker to taste the remorse and pity he now has, after decades of not understanding his Father’s love. Unfortunately, the speaker later realizes that a Father’s love is unfathomable and deeper than what he thought as a kid. At that moment, it is now too late. The tone shifts from

Acknowledging that this action is taking place on a Sunday, one may think he wakes him to prepare himself for church or other religious rituals. Again, referring back to the title, we know this took place on a Sunday. As the speaker is getting up and getting ready, he implies how he fears the “chronic angers of that house” (line 9). Chronic usually refers to an illness which is recurring and perhaps the walls of their house is ill. What is it that makes the speaker 's house ill and chronic? Does the relationships in the house makes it ill? Does the blueblack cold make it ill? First, no one ever thanked his father, and now the “chronic angers of that house” (line 9) fears him. The families relationships within the household could have caused the persisting angers that the speaker felt, which caused him to be