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Those Winter Sundays Analysis

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Similarities and contrast in the themes of the poems
Those Winter Sundays and My Father’s Song
Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden is a poem talking about childhood memories of a father. In the poem the speaker remembers his father, and the character of the father. In Simon Ortiz’s My father’s Song, the speaker is narrating the memories they shared with his father. These two poems are written with a focus on the father and child relationship. The two poems also reveal the narrators ' memories and shows how fast time can go and what was meaningful in the narrators’ childhood is gone. The two poems share the themes of Love, Childhood memories, and endeavors of the male parent. Likewise, the two poems contrast like love, reflected by the two fathers, the memories of childhood and the narrator’s feelings about their memories. The two …show more content…

In Ortiz’s poem, the narrator appreciates his father. That is why he accompanied him to the field. The narrator is proud of his father and what they do together. Furthermore, there is joy when the two are working together they can take a moment and “scoop tiny pink animals,” (Ortiz, 2003. para. 4). However, the narrator in Hayden’s poem reveal that no one appreciated the father in the last line of the first stanza, he acknowledges that no one ever thanked him. The father of the narrator in Those Winter Sundays is a laborer and probably does odd jobs because he says, “then with cracked hands that ached from labor.” (Out Loud, 2003.para. 1). He seems to be working hard to ensure the narrator got what he needed as a child. In the last stanza where he says, “And polished my good shoes as well,” (Out Loud, 2003.para. 3). The reader is made aware that even though he worked hard probably as a laborer and earned little, he bought shoes for the narrator. The reader can even imagine that the narrator’s father took him to school; that is why he brushed his

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The shoes represent the family’s pride. The father doesn't have his shoes on when he leaves because once the government comes and unlawfully takes him from his home he and his family are stripped of their pride. In the fourth passage the boy imagines reminding his father to put

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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.

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The speaker talks about harvesting and cooking which are usually positive activities, but it creates an unhappy environment. All the speaker talks about are his father and his death, which the reader can conclude with evidence from the text. The speaker also uses a nostalgic tone to show the absence of his father in his life. The speaker cherished his memories with his father and regrets not doing more.

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Throughout “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Those Winter Sundays”, the author’s reflect on how their fathers were hard workers, although each memory is emotionally different. In “My Papa’s Waltz”, Roethke remembers his father coming home from work and his hands “Was battered on one knuckle” (Line 10). Even though the father had a long day at work, the boy recounts him coming home and dancing with him. Whereas “Those Winter Sundays”, Hayden recalls his fathers hard work by describing his “Cracked hands that ached/

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