The Use of Imagery in "Those Winter Sundays"
The Use of Imagery in "Those Winter Sundays"
Parents often have the desire to give to their children no matter how much pain it brings to themselves. In Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays,” the father does whatever is necessary to make his family comfortable. In the early morning he awakens to a cold house and rises to prepare a fire that will warm the house for the rest of the family. As the son grows older and matures, he realizes that he should have praised his father for the many sacrifices he has made in the past. Hayden uses imagery throughout the poem to enable the reader to sense the devotion of the father and the ungratefulness of the son.
In the early stages of the poem, Hayden creates the image of a caring, devoted father. The typical stereotype of a father is that of a man who is willing to work for his family. In the poem Hayden creates the same image by saying, “Sundays too my father got up early / and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold” (ll. 11-12). The father cares so immensely for his family that he sacrifices his own comfort for them. Hayden mentions that he rises in the “blueblack cold” to emphasize that the sun has not even begun to rise. The speaker further characterizes the father by saying that his “cracked hands that ached / from labor in the weekday weather made / banked fires blaze” (ll. 3-5). The father works every day in the harsh weather causing himself physical pain. Sunday mornings, ironically, are no exceptions because the duty of warming the house still remains. The first stanza ends with, “No one ever thanked him” (1. 5). Everything he does for his family is out of love, not desire for gratification. The second stanza includes imagery of the father by mentioning that “[w]hen the rooms were warm, he’d call” (1. 7). Again, the father shows his love for his family. He only calls them when the rooms are warm so that they will not have to brave the cold. Symbolically, this line suggests that the father’s love has warmed the rooms for his family. Images of the father in the third stanza include Hayden’s description of the father “[driving] out the cold...