Those Winter Sundays Literary Devices

“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, tells about a boy’s dispassionate relationship to his hardworking father and how the ignorance that comes with youth comes back to haunt him. Hayden begins the poem as if he were already in the middle of a conversation, just jumping into the topic of his father, “Sundays too my father got up early” (1). Through using “Sundays” in conjunction with “too”, it is immediately known that the father is a dedicated early bird. However, this is not without a reason. He adds that his father “put his clothes on in the blueback cold / then with with cracked hands that ached / from labour in the weekday weather made/ banked fires blaze” (2-5). Through the cacophonous words “blueback cold”, “ached” and “cracked”placing …show more content…
The next sentence breaks flow with the previous sentence, abruptly adding “No one ever thanked him” (5). This unexpected break in tone goes in conjunction with and places more attention to the unexpected idea that is presented. In the next stanza, Hayden shifts from observation to direct interaction with the father as the narrator notes “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking / When the rooms were warm, he’d call / and slowly I would rise and dress” (6), showing to the reader the child is fully aware and is obedient to his father. However, the reason for this is that the narrator is “fearing the chronic angers of that house” (9), is most likely due to their low economic status, and lack of wife in his life as the absence of a mother -the childraiser of family- implicates the father is raising the child alone. After, the narrator is pulling back the reader from the past to the present by shining his abusive father in a better light. This is done through the emphasis his father's good deeds by one use of polysyndeton, “as well” in the line “and polished my good shoes as well” (14). In the climax, the narrator repeats twice …show more content…
This poem makes the readers question whether we treat our parents in the same way as or if we genuinely appreciate them, a significant problem constantly seen throughout the times in society. Likewise the title “Those Winter Sundays” gives a deeper introspection on what the story is about. These three words used in conjunction immediately show that the poem is about a harsh stage in the narrator’s life with the main emphasis being on “Winter”, a word used in poetry usually to describe bleakness. His attitude towards his father was like the fields of Winter, cold and full of the same feeling of nothingness that the color white has as far as the eye can see. Even so, the father “had driven out the cold” (14), making the author realize how wrong he treated his flawed but loving father. The tide of maturity has washed away the speckles of youth, revealing a haunting picture of one adolescent's penitent actions that many can relate

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