Sacrifices Revealed In Gary Soto's Those Winter Sundays

Parents or caregivers take on many responsibilities that often lead them to making sacrifices for the people they love. An example of this can be seen in the poem titled Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden. The poem has lines that explain a fathers hard-working sacrifices. It says, “Sundays too my father got up early,” and, “then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday-”. This provides a window into what the father may have gone through in order to provide for his family. Line 10 says, “Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well.” The father definitely did a lot for the son, and for the family. Line 5 exclaims, “No one ever thanked him.” The father would sacrifice many things

This passage is about Gary Soto in his younger years, a Mexican American living in California. He had many responsibilities, this autobiographical essay highlights his time picking cotton and grapes. In it, his mother gives him advice while also working for herself and the inference can be made that she was picking the grapes for money to provide for her family. It says, “Mother also found herself out there when she separated from Father for three weeks.” This provides the idea that the mother is working very hard to provide for her family, even though she has to maybe sacrifice her health or time. Knowledge about all that parents and caregivers do for the people they care for puts into perspective how little is done for them. An example of this can be found on page 406 when Gary talks about how he is going to buy new clothes with the money he is earning from picking grapes. The mother, however, had other plans and the inference can be made that she was providing for the children what they needed to survive while the children just wanted to look their best. “Mother earned one hundred and forty-eight dollars. She wrote this on her envelope, with a message I didn’t bother to ask her about.” In my opinion it seems as though the message she had written on the envelope had something to do with the children. Later in the essay, the author admits how right his mother was and how he should have listened to her all