The Meaning of Love in “Those Winter Sundays” Anonymous College

Robert Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays centers on the speaker who ponders on his past when he was a child and the relationship with his father. The poem offers an intimate comprehension on how the Sunday mornings are for the speaker as a child. As an adult, he looks back on his indifferent attitude towards his father who works hard to provide for the household. He remembers his father’s actions from making a fire for warmth to preparing his good shoes for church attendance. The speaker uses a reflective voice to express the passage of time and his change in perception over the years. The poem also offers a melancholic and remorseful tone to illustrate the narrator’s new understanding of how lonely and grim the burdens of parental love are. Furthermore, the selflessness involved without any acknowledgment. It explores the complex dynamic between the father and child dramatizing the occurrences through literary devices. It also incorporates powerful imagery to illustrate the father’s daily life and the type of lifestyle the household experiences. The various elements in the poem work to service the underlying themes of sacrifice and parental love and to convey the emotionality. The speaker reminisces and understands a father’s...