ipl-logo

Those Winter Sundays Comparison

1208 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Those winter sundays analysis

Poems have a unique way of showing a theme or a feeling to the reader depending on the author’s style. When we compare the authors, Theodore Roethk and Robert Hayden we see how they show the themes in their poems. Theodore Roethke was an American poet who had a very tough childhood. At the age of 14, his father passed away, aside from that Roethke suffered from BP(bipolar disorder). Roethke went to the University of Michigan. At one point Roethke was considered the most influential and accomplished poet of his generation. Roethke is most known for his poem “The Waking”. Robert Hayden, much like Roethke, had a very tough childhood. Hayden was mostly raised by foster parents growing up. Hayden went to Detroit City College, today known as Wayne …show more content…

In the article by LitCharts, they state that the poem is, “...a subtle gesture towards the sonnet to highlight how the speaker can't go back and show his father the appreciation…” The article explains how sonnets are usually used for love poems, but in reality, this poem is a love poem. The love is towards his father, he talks about all the sacrifices that he now as an adult realizes his father did for him and shows his love for his father now that he can truly appreciate all his father has done for him. The form of the poem “Papa’s Waltz” is in a four-stanza form, that is in quatrains. According to the article by Poem Analysis, “The quatrains follow the rhyme scheme of ABAB…The metrical pattern is not consistent throughout but mostly the lines are made up of three sets of two beats,” The article talks about the inconsistency of the poem’s rhyme scheme which is purposefully done by the author. By having inconsistency in the rhyme scheme, the author contributes to the “off-balance” dance that he describes his father …show more content…

Hayden, now an adult realizes how much his father actually sacrificed for him and expected nothing in return, representing the theme of growing up and memory. In the poem “Papa’s Waltz”, Roethke tells us the story of his and his father’s relationship as a child, representing the theme of father/son relationships. In the poem Roethke explains this “waltz” that his father did, in reality, it is a tantrum, in a way, that his father did every time he drank, this represents the theme of violence in the poem. Throughout the poem “Those Winter Sundays”, the author talks about what it was like on those Sundays. He talks about his father’s routine of waking up early in the morning to make sure his house was warm for his family regardless of the fact that the father had to wake up early every weekday in order to go to work and provide for his family. In the last stanza, Hayden questions, “...what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?” By saying this, Hayden realizes all of the efforts that his father did for him and realizes that he didn’t acknowledge any of this as a kid so how did he know what it takes to show love to your family at such a young age? Hayden describes his father’s routine every Sunday morning as a child and by the end of the poem, as an adult, he

Show More
Related
119 Words | 1 Pages

In “My Papa’s Waltz,” poet Theodore Roethke uses sensory details and ambiguous language to persuade both the boy and the reader that the boy still loves his father, despite him being an alcoholic. On the third sentence of the first stanza, Roethke uses ambiguous language by stating: “But I hung on like death. Such waltzing was not easy.” Although this plainly means that the boy was holding onto his father without ease, it can be interpreted in another way; the boy still loves his father, even though it is hard to love him with his alcoholism at times, and the boy still loves his father very much. The boy is reflecting on this idea while waltzing with his

Read More
749 Words | 3 Pages

The waltz is a four step dance to every four beats similar to the poem. The poem is styled to have four stanzas with four verses in every stanza. Having a four to four ratio similar to the waltz so it seems that the author used the flow of the poem to symbolize the waltz. In the poem, it says “at every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle”. One late night the boy and the father were waltzing around the kitchen, but with every missed step the boy paid the consequences with a little scrap.

Read More
453 Words | 2 Pages

Specifically this poem tells of the time when the author’s father would pick him up and happily waltz around the house with him while creating a somewhat chaotic scene. From the first reading of “My Papa’s Waltz”, the piece could be simply seen as a playful and lively waltz between a father and

Read More
691 Words | 3 Pages

Born in 1941 in New York, Billy Collins has grown to become an excellent writer. He currently appointed as the Poet Laureate of the United States. Billy Collins poems discuss human experiences with in life to relate to the reader. The experiences discussed or remembrance, questioning, and love.

Read More
902 Words | 4 Pages

Another example of this, in the last stanza, lines 15-16, is made as Roethke notes “[t]hen waltzed me off to bed/[s]till clinging to your shirt.” The last lines of the poem show the true relationship at the end of all the confusion lost in the midst of the middle of the poem. The father loves his son and waltzes him to bed and the boy, loving his father, slings to his shirt to stay with him. The poem expresses the confusion and complexity created in a relationship such as this one between father and son, but at the end, the confusion is unnecessary and what prevails is not the negatives, but instead the positive aspect of

Read More
871 Words | 4 Pages

The father/son relationship are shown in both poems. Both are adults reflecting on their past. “My Papa’s Waltz” is about how the father would dance daily with the son. Although it was painful when he sometimes missed a step and his “right ear scraped a buckle”, this was a memorable memory for the son (Line 8). The poem has a happy tone of the sons childhood days.

Read More
691 Words | 3 Pages

Firstly, “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Those Winter Sundays” vary in their structure. “My Papa’s Waltz” has four, four line stanzas. In addition to having sixteen lines, it also has a rhyme scheme of A-B-A-B. “My Papa’s Waltz” is also written in iambic trimeter. What is unique about “My Papa’s Waltz” is that since it is written in iambic trimeter, that means that the rhythm would be the same as a standard waltz.

Read More
543 Words | 3 Pages

The Poem: "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden depicts a man reflecting on the relationship between him and his father. The speaker does not realize all that his father has done for him until he is an adult and laments his regret. I find that there are parts of the poem that I can relate to in regards to my own relationship with my father. The first stanza of the poem introduces the boys father and uses imagery to convey the fathers pain with the words: "cracked" and "ached".

Read More
784 Words | 4 Pages

The final stanza incorporates a lot of emotions from the speaker such as unconditional love, fear, regrets, compassion, and hatred. This then opens the reader to a type of coldness that appeals on a totally emotional level. For example in the first line of the last stanza “speaking indifferently to him” meaning that child is being cold towards the father very much like the weather outside. Then in the third line of the last stanza “polished my good shoes as well” is his father showing love once again. Although kisses and hugs are nice showing a sense of compassion his father shows his love is a different way he shows his love by doing his manly duties and making their home is warm before the rest of the family awakes and making sure they look good.

Read More
429 Words | 2 Pages

In Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays”, the subject matter is touching on the loneliness of being a loving father or parent. It is about a child realizing how hard their father works and labors to keep them cared for and warm, and how little that father is acknowledged, appreciated, and thanked for his work. The language used by Robert Hayden in his poem is appropriate to the subject matter. It is appropriate because it conveys the tone of loneliness. Some of the poetic devices used in “Those Winter Sundays” are alliteration, assonance, and metaphors.

Read More
931 Words | 4 Pages

The reader can relate to this because of the unconditional love they feel for someone in their lives. Later in the poem, the poet writes, “ Together they fell in deep love real fast, vowed to love each other, that they’d always

Read More
531 Words | 3 Pages

In this poem all the son sees is battered knuckles on his father with “palms caked hard by dirt.” This paints a description of an abusive father that does not love his son because if he did love his son he would not hurt him. The father is first introduced with “whiskey on his breath” (line 1) which can be inferred that he is an alcoholic and this creates a negative image that the reader can see and even smell. The son though seems to notice all this, but still seems to love his father and admire him. The waltz represents a repetitive step and in the poem the waltz is his father’s constant abuse and interrupts the sweet idealistic dance.

Read More
732 Words | 3 Pages

Robert Hayden uses tone shift in “Those Winter Sundays” to showcase the complexity of parenting styles and how easy miscommunication can be caused between parent and child. This is done through the speaker's perspective of childhood and how his father influenced his experience in his youth. By shifting from a regretful to an enlightening yet reminiscent tone, we see how our speaker misunderstood his father’s expression of love and why it was misinterpreted. Towards the beginning of the poem, a regretful tone is shown from the speaker who feels guilty for the way he treated his father in his childhood.

Read More
671 Words | 3 Pages

he

Read More
659 Words | 3 Pages

All people have their good days and bad days. In the poems “Piano” by D.H. Lawrence and “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, the speaker's experience both good memories and bad. Both speakers lived a simple life but what they as a individual were going through was not so simple. The poems each show love even if it's hard to tell. In the two poems “Piano” and “Those Winter Sundays” it shows that the conflict, setting and speaker reveal their own hardships and blessings.

Read More

More about Those Winter Sundays Comparison

Related Topics

Open Document