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Those Winter Sundays Summary

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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". It is inferred that the father works outside in the harsh cold doing long hours of manual labor. The boy and this father probably live in a low income environment. I can personally relate to these lines due to the fact that my father also spends many long hours doing manual labor in sometimes intense conditions for little pay. I easily associate the imagery used to the boy's father to my own as his labor has injured him and worn him in many ways over the years. …show more content…

No one ever thanked him". Sundays is important in this context because it has biblical significance. Sunday is regarded as a day of rest and yet the father was up warming up the house so his son would be warm. Despite this the father was not thanked for his kind gestures by anyone, not even his son. My father much like the speakers works tirelessly and hard for his family. However, I do not relate with the sons ungratefulness quite the same way. In my situation I regret my lack of understanding of my father's struggles when I was

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