Those Winter Sundays: A Child's Memory
Robert Hayden’s "Those Winter Sundays": A Child’s Memory
Oftentimes we look back at a certain point in our lives with regret. We feel that if only we had known then what we know now, things would have been different. As we grow older, our view of the world is altered through experience and maturity. In Robert Hayden’s "Those Winter Sundays," the speaker is a man reflecting on his past and his apathy toward his father when the speaker was a child. As an adult the speaker has come to understand what regretfully had escaped him as a boy. Now he has learned to appreciate the form his father’s love had taken. The speaker now understands how difficult and lonely the duties of parental love can be and how …show more content…
First, it suggests that the poem is a memory in that it contains the word "Those." The word indicates that there were many Sundays like this one and that the memory is not of a single event but of a typical Sunday during the speaker’s childhood. Secondly, Hayden writes of "Winter Sundays" as opposed to warm, sunny summer ones. Winter, a time when everything normally fresh, beautiful and alive is dead and covered with snow, connotes both coldness and gloominess. These connotations reflect the boy’s distant relationship with his father and his coldness toward …show more content…
What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices? (10-14)
The speaker confesses that as a child he was apathetic and cold toward his father in spite of all the latter’s hard work and devotion. Along with literally warming the house, the father was a servant who performed such mundane tasks as polishing his son’s shoes. This small image underscores the love the father must have had for the child.
Hayden repeats the question "What did I know?" in Line 13. In doing so, he allows the reader to acknowledge the terrible sense of sadness and regret the speaker now feels. The poem’s final line completes the question: "what did I know/of love’s austere and lonely offices?" The child was unable to know the difficulty and sacrifice of parental love. The word "offices" denotes a service done for another. It implies that the father’s life revolved around serving his son. It also signifies a religious rite or ceremony ("office"). This ties in with the religious elements of the poem in that the father was participating in the parental ritual of sacrificing one’s own happiness for that of one’s
Oftentimes we look back at a certain point in our lives with regret. We feel that if only we had known then what we know now, things would have been different. As we grow older, our view of the world is altered through experience and maturity. In Robert Hayden’s "Those Winter Sundays," the speaker is a man reflecting on his past and his apathy toward his father when the speaker was a child. As an adult the speaker has come to understand what regretfully had escaped him as a boy. Now he has learned to appreciate the form his father’s love had taken. The speaker now understands how difficult and lonely the duties of parental love can be and how …show more content…
First, it suggests that the poem is a memory in that it contains the word "Those." The word indicates that there were many Sundays like this one and that the memory is not of a single event but of a typical Sunday during the speaker’s childhood. Secondly, Hayden writes of "Winter Sundays" as opposed to warm, sunny summer ones. Winter, a time when everything normally fresh, beautiful and alive is dead and covered with snow, connotes both coldness and gloominess. These connotations reflect the boy’s distant relationship with his father and his coldness toward …show more content…
What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices? (10-14)
The speaker confesses that as a child he was apathetic and cold toward his father in spite of all the latter’s hard work and devotion. Along with literally warming the house, the father was a servant who performed such mundane tasks as polishing his son’s shoes. This small image underscores the love the father must have had for the child.
Hayden repeats the question "What did I know?" in Line 13. In doing so, he allows the reader to acknowledge the terrible sense of sadness and regret the speaker now feels. The poem’s final line completes the question: "what did I know/of love’s austere and lonely offices?" The child was unable to know the difficulty and sacrifice of parental love. The word "offices" denotes a service done for another. It implies that the father’s life revolved around serving his son. It also signifies a religious rite or ceremony ("office"). This ties in with the religious elements of the poem in that the father was participating in the parental ritual of sacrificing one’s own happiness for that of one’s