'Denotation In Robert Hayden's Those Winter Sundays'

In Robert Hayden’s "Those Winter Sundays," the speaker is looking back on his past and his insensitivity toward his father when he was a child. As an adult, the speaker has become aware of what regretfully had escaped him as a boy. Through Robert Hayden’s diction the readers are able to feel the poem’s emotional appeal of regret. For example, towards the end of the poem the speaker states that as a child he “[spoke] indifferently to [his father]” the simple relating of the word “indifferently” which denotation is not caring reflects the negative attitudes from the son to the father (5). The connotation of the word elicits an association that powerfully captures the sons in gratitude towards his father’s selflessness. His use of the past