Blog prompt: Read/work "Those Winter Sundays" 63/57/64/66. What kind of imagery is central to the poem? How does the imagery work to reveal the theme of the poem?
Homework: (a) To turn in: Answer the questions following "To Autumn" (various page numbers: 65/53/67/68) -- pay particular attention to #3 (b) Read sections I-VII -- Writing about poetry
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Those Winter Sundays created darker tense image for me. The image of the father is central to the poem.
He is depicted to be hard working with "cracked hands that ache", aching hands hinting at years of hard labor. The "blue black cold" is a dark early morning before the sun has warmed the earth. Here alone in the early cold with cracked hands the father looks solemn and hard, weathered. The cold "splintering, breaking" is hard and precise. The father "calls" it is a distant and aloof greeting. The house has "chronic angers" the angers naturally don't come from the physical house but the metaphorical 'head of house'. His love holds "austere"- severe, strict, and grave, and "lonely" "offices". These descriptions all depict the father to be unaffectionate and distant from the speaker. Yet, despite his roughness the father is still the one "who had driven out the cold, and polished my good shoes as well." so clearly he cares deeply about the speaker.
The speaker says, "what did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?" at the end of the poem. The speaker is reflecting that even though he never noticed it, his father was very caring, just in an austere, lonely and official way. The poem shows that love can be expressed in many ways and is often overlooked.
I liked the image the poem creates of a young child laying in bed listening to his father in the morning silently crack wood and build fires with weathered aching hands, then carefully polishing the childs shoes. The calloused father calls to his child and looks at them softly before leaving to work more. The child takes this for granted until looking back later, and remembering the silent labor of his fathers love.
is the "To Autumn" assignment due tomorrow too? It really shouldn't be since this was just posted like an hour ago and most people are going to the Opera in several more hours and have other things to do like go running before then...
I will respond to Those Winter Sundays a little bit later, but I was wondering if there was going to be a post to discuss To Autumn? I'm having a bit of trouble with question five, and would love some help with it.
There's tons of tactile imagery in the first stanza: the father dresses in the "blueback cold," and then with "cracked hands" (kind of a little dose here of kinesthetic imagery too, with "ached") he makes "banked fires blaze."
So the father awoke to a freezing cold, in much harder conditions than those the son later takes for granted. He gives this sacrifice of chill and ache in order to have his son begin the day in warm rooms, having "driven out" the cold. Powerful phrase, there.
One can feel the chill in the air as the father shakes off his sleep. One can feel the weary hands with which the father toils. One can feel the mighty flames that are brought ablaze so that the son may wake in a little comfort.
"But no one ever thanked him."
The father's love is austere and lonely, and apparently he is prone to chronic bouts of anger.
Yet through the powerful imagery, it is made clear that the father cares greatly for his son.
The young son is wary and treats his father with indifference, for he knows not of the loving efforts that have brought about the cold's mighty "splintering, breaking."
Long after the fact, the matured son reflects upon his childhood and regrets that he did not understand his father's mind sooner.
A moving poem.
Poetry is experience, so... let's think a little about our fathers too, shall we?
I agree with David about the amount of tactile imagery throughout the poem (ie: "ached", "warm", how the cold had to be "driven out"). I also want to add that I feel that many of the descriptions seem visual as well. When I first read "blueblack", in my mind's eye I saw someone w/ the first stages of frostbite. Similarily, I also remember my own dad rubbing lotion on his "cracked hands" during winter. Some auditory imagery was "cold, splintering, breaking" almost I would maybe guess like the sound of ice cracking, perhaps?
Looking at the questions the first is to look up "offices." Strangely, I found, there is a separate definition for the plural. "Something whether good or bad, done or said for someone". The chores that must be done on even the most frigid winter mornings depicted really are thankless jobs. "Austere"--always reminds me of one of the books in A Series of Unfortunate Events book 6, The Austere Academy. I looked it up since I haven't read the book for a couple of years. Within imagery austere describes the father's daily tasks...severe, solem, rough, and needing rigorous self-dicscipline.
As a question, line 9 really confused me. Using "fearing the chronic angers of that house" it seems that perhaps the speaker is implying that the household is not the using the term loosely (cause I can't think of a word right now) "perfect" or "ideal". I don't really know, if anyone has an answer, post...
I liked this poem a lot. The varying types of imagery make it very interesting to read. I liked how Robert Hayden combined "blueblack cold" in particular (2). It's visual imagery, of a very early morning when it is still dark outside. It also is tactile imagery with the sensation of cold. This line is critical to setting up the message of the poem, which is how the speaker realizes later on in life what a sacrifice his dad made to get the fires going in the morning to drive away that bitter cold for the family.
Another standout line is "...with cracked hands that ached" (3). This is visual imagery and tactile imagery. It helps establish that the father already works extremely hard during the weekday, making his early-morning work seem that much sweeter.
Auditory imagery is used in the second stanza, when he describes his father getting rid of the cold, "splintering, breaking..." (6). This imagery shows the hard work involved in making the house warm that the son takes for granted.
All of the imagery helps paint this picture of a loving father taken for granted. Even though he works ridiculously hard during the weekdays, so much so that his hands ache, he gets up before it is even light outside ("the blueblack cold"), and "breaks" the cold. All of this the son does not notice until clearly much later, when he looks back on his childhood and regrets not thanking his father or understanding the sacrifice he made for him.
The central imagery in the poem is tactile. It comes by itself,especially in the first stanza, as David pointed out. It also comes integrated into imagery that uses more than one sense, like "cracked hands that ached" combining tactile and organic (or kinesthetic...i'm not sure). I also noted "cold splintering" because I wasn't sure whether it could be argued that tactile is part of that imagery. The theme of the poem is unconditional love, and the fact that pain is as much a part a love as pleasure and happiness. The speaker's father still loves the speaker, regardless of how the speaker has treated him. The imagery aids to the feeling of empathy for the father. The tone of the poem is guilt and regret, and the imagery puts you right there with the father, struggling for the benefit of an ungrateful son.
I just want to share a quote I saw earlier that I thought was funny. "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." Heh, well, I thought it was funny...
So, those darn winter Sundays; much more intense than I remember. The poem centers on the image of a father. Not just any father though, a loving father, who sets out each Sunday morning to make the house just a bit more homey. Despite "cracked hands that ached" from his work, the father wakes early to gather wood for the fire. The imagery is brought to life by the chills invoked through Hayden's use of "blueback cold." Not freezing cold, not even frigid, but blueback. Upon reading that, I immediately felt the sensation of throwing off the blankets at 6 in the morning in the middle of December (or January, or February).
I also thought that the line, "I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking," was really interesting. It's not the logs of the fire that are crackling with warmth as you might suppose; it is the cold shattering and splintering apart.
One more thing that struck me was the word "austere" in the final line. I always thought it meant pristine or pure, but I looked it up and it means imposing, humorless, or without luxury. On the surface, someone might think those (along with lonely) are strange words to use to describe love. But with the accompanying poem, it's clear that these words fit perfectly. Here is this dad, who gets up early in the freezing cold on his day off, and warms the house so that the rest of his family can be all nice and toasty when they hop out of bed all bleary eyed. "No one every thanked him." It's a sentence all by itself, which really sets it apart and makes it stand out. I thought that was pretty sad. Also, "Speaking indifferently to him / who had driven out the cold / and polished my good shoes as well," are sad lines that further the argument of the definition of love's lonely offices.
Oh, that's another thing. An office is not someplace you want to spend your time. But it's used in conjunction with love, which is something normally sought. The speaker, who knows nothing ("What did I know, what did I know") of love, fails to recognize the love in his fathers actions.
Ah, jeez, I just realized I kind of neglected to answer the actual blog questions. That's easily corrected though. The type of imagery that I felt is central is tactile imagery, with strong support from auditory imagery. There is the blueback cold, the blazing fire, the cold splintering, and the slow warming of the rooms. We all know what these things feel like. A blazing fire and that wonderful crackling, popping noise goes hand in hand with the feelings of warmth that come with a fire. We also all know what it's like to be called downstairs by a parent in the early morning hours, as well as how much nicer it is to wake up to a warm house rather than a cold one. In this poem we experience both sensations, the chill when the father wakes, and the warmth when the speaker gets up.
The sensations of cold are much stronger in the poem than the feelings of warmth, and I believe that it how the imagery helps to reveal the poems theme. There is no warmth for the father, only cold indifference from a son who takes that affection for granted. It really does feel as if the speaker is giving the father the cold shoulder. No one ever thanked him, after all. Ever is such a strong word. It's in the same realm as words like "never" and "always."
That's all I've got for this one. Just two lines I didn't get:
"and slowly I would rise and dress / fearing the chronic angers of that house."
What does that mean? I can see slowly getting up and getting dressed. I think everyone gets ready pretty slowly when you're woken before you are ready to wake. But I don't get the chronic angers bit at all. Help? Thanks.
Oooh, I just read Davids post, and what he says about the "chronic angers" makes a lot of sense. I can see how that works now. Awesome. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I guess that's what I get for not reading previous posts first. No harm done though.
The speaker uses different forms of imagery to convey their meaning, but I think the imagery that is most central to the poem is that which describes the temperature. In the beginning of the poem phrases like “blueblack cold” and “cracked hands that ached” were used to set the tone and give a picture of what was happening. In the middle stanza it started with the cold, but it went “splintering, breaking” away and was replaced with warmth. The sense of touch and temperature is the main component in this poem, relating the feeling felt by those in the poem, but also expressing how the speaker’s perception of their father changes. The speaker’s perception was first cold and ungrateful for all their father did for them (“No one ever thanked him,” (5)). It then broke away into loving warmth as they understood the love the father has for them. “Speaking indifferently to him, / who had driven out the cold / and polished my good shoes as well /… what did I know / of love’s austere and lonely offices?” (10-15). The speaker didn’t understand or thank their father for all they had done, but looking back, they understood the sacrifice and commitment their father had and could appreciate it.
Upon revisiting the poem, I now realize that I've made a rather grave mistake (I think it's significant, at least).
I misread "blueblack cold" as "blueback cold"---which is also interesting, but not quite as awesome in terms of imagery.
This cold is reaching frostbite levels, ladies and gentlemen, while a dark shade of blue begins to diffuse through the black night sky. Intense. Tactile. Visual.
On that note, I agree with Sam in that there's really a variety of imagery used in this poem. Indeed, some bits of imagery are even more than one type at once.
Like Grace and Brianna pointed out, "splintering, breaking" is also auditory---it's also quite visual, personally. An atmosphere of ice slowly cracks and shatters to make way for loving warmth.
Matt's "wonderful crackling, popping noise" from the fire ablaze is a nice and strong tactile+auditory image, too.
There are two main types of imagery used in the poem "Those Winter Sundays," auditory and tactile.
In the first stanza the speaker describes his father putting his clothes on in the "blueblack cold." Secondly the speaker describes his father's hands as "cracked and ached." These are all tactile imagery.
In the second stanza, the speaker uses auditory imagery when describing the cold as "splintering" and "breaking."
The speaker uses imagery to drive home how hard the father worked, even during the weekend, to make his son's life a little more better/comfortable. The father did not just get up and start a fire but go through agonizing pain, during the bitter cold in the wee hours of the morning, doing a thankless job. This with the promise that tomorrow would bring a full week of more work at his weekday job. All of this realized later by the speaker.
Through sharp, distinct, and vivid diction, the speaker gives voice to the strong emotion of regret and relays his painful memories of indifference and ignorance towards his father’s quiet, hidden, but unwavering love. The imagery that Hayden uses within this poem is amazing, as his diction not only appeals to a single sensory experience, but to multiple senses. He truly provides a multifaceted and wholesome experience of “those winter Sundays”. On such wintry days, his father never failed to get up early and “…put his clothes on in the blueback cold,” and with “…cracked hands that ached” made “banked fires blaze” (2-4). One of the more significant words that might be looked over (as it’s obvious), but I believe is important to dwell upon, is that of “Sunday”. Designated a day of rest, most people do not bother sliding out of bed until well into the morning. Yet, the speaker’s father, who must wish to spend a few more moments in bed, coaxed himself out of bed into the “blueblack” cold. The imagery here is both visual and tactile. The cold of those winter mornings can’t be described as chilly, frosty, or freezing, as these words do not do it justice. The cold (like David said) is capable of giving unprotected flesh frostbite. One can mentally see the exposed flesh turning blue and then black in that “blueblack” cold. The phrase “cracked hands that ached” denotes auditory, tactile, and organic imagery. Due to “...labor in the weekday weather,” which we assume to be also “blueblack” cold, the speaker’s father’s hands has become chapped, chipped, and cracked. The roughness of the hands is made distinct and one can feel tingling pain arising from the cracked skin and ache from a week of hard work. As he set to make “banked fires blaze”, those hands must surely have cracked as the chapped skin stretched and broke. The imagery in the second stanza is just as distinct and vivid. The speaker arose from his sleep, hearing “…the cold splintering, breaking” as warmth from the blazing fire invaded the room. Through the building of the fire, the sheath of cold has retreated and one can hear the breakdown of its icy effect. The imagery produced from that line is mainly auditory. The third stanza represents a departure from the first two stanzas. In this stanza, the speaker expresses intense regret over his inability to appreciate his father deeds as revealed in the first two stanzas. There is no abundant imagery here, but the word “office” within the phrase, “love’ s austere and lonely offices” is particularly significant. The word “office” invokes a sense of work and perfectly summarizes the expression of his father’s love through work within the home.
Thus, the imagery is more concentrated within the first two stanzas. It serves a crucial purpose; the imagery expresses, highlights, and stresses the magnitude of love behind the father’s deeds. The imagery makes it more than clear that rising early on a wintry Sunday morning is excruciatingly “blueblack” cold. Moreover, the speaker’s father has not fully recuperated from a week’s work. Yet, with his chapped hands, he makes the fire. The imagery used to describe these deeds stresses the sacrifice the father willing makes for his son’s warmth. Although, his father’s angry countenance is chronic, the love that underlies outward anger is real and heightened by the vivid imagery.
This poem makes use of imagery to imprint in the readers mind the picture that he himself is seeing. Hayden is able to portray this love from his dad he had been so oblivious through the use of imagery.
The first stanza describes his dad's cracked hands that ached from the labor. His dad is shown to us as a hardened man from the labor. As he puts his clothes on to face the bluback cold. All these really paint a picture in our minds about his dad. We see him fight through all this to be never thanked. WE feel the pian his father endures to keep the house warm.
In the 2nd stanza we are shown what Hayden hears. He can hear the cruel winters. We are given a clear picture of his dad's work to heat the house.
Through this imagery we are given a deeper sense of empathy for the father. The author is better able to portray his point when his readers have a picture painted of his dad working in the cold, with his cracked hands just to warm up the house. And on top of it, he gets no thanks.
There is such an emphasis on hot and cold in Those Winter Sundays that it is no wonder that the primary form of imagery within the poem is tactile. My absolute favorite is the father getting dressed in the "blueblack cold" (Line 2). It is interesting to me that Hayden would use the word blueblack to descibe the cold, it reminds me of waking up early and looking outside, it's pitch black outside, and yet everything's got a sort of bluish hue to it, the ice on my car, the sky (which is normal I understand), my skin, my clothing, etc. Everything looks that way and feels that way as well. I also love how the speaker didn't see the "cold splintering, breaking," but that he heard the cold instead. It is just that much more powerful because you can hear the ice breaking off of the roof, or the crackling of a newly started fire. The combinations of imagery in this poem create a real picture, almost like a vivid dream, where I can hear the father moving about the house, I can feel the "blueblack" cold, I can smell the newly lit fire, I can feel the ache of the muscles as the speaker rises out of bed, I can see what the father has done for the speaker (the polished good shoes), and I can feel his love for his (I would assume) son. This truly is a great and magnificant poem.
The poem contains visual and tactile imagery. It is clear that the picture is not of a happy memory but is rather serious. Further, the parts regarding sense of touch do not indicate warmth--it is the opposite. The premise of the poem is about a son reminiscing the days with his father. The final stanza (line 13, "What did I know, what did I know") gives light to the true meaning: that the son did not feel his father's love at the time because of all the coldness that seemed to loom in the house (and the unnoticed contributions of his father). However, looking back he realizes all that his father did for him and what he could not see (line 5, "No one ever thanked him").
In "Those Winter Sundays", there is a lot of description that encompasses all your senses. "The blueblack cold", lets you actually see the cold, dark morning that the father wakes up to, but you can also feel the chill in the air. "then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday", this line gives us a little information about the father. He must be a laborer of some kind and doesn't work in an office. We can also assume that this family is relatively poor since the father is working on a Sunday.
It seems that the narrator has some regret. "No one ever thanked him." The narrator sounds like he feels bad for taking advantage of what his father does for him and never got around to thanking him for it.
The father would wake up way earlier than the narrator and start the fires so that the house would be warm for when he wakes up. Even though the father does this, the only thing that the narrator seems to take from it is that his father has "chronic anger" and only fears him.
The third stanza concretes the idea that the narrator has regret. He spoke indifferently to him instead of thanking him for his caring. "What did I know, what did I know/ of love's austere and lonely offices!" His father was a severe man, but he did so much for his family and the narrator doesn't seem to understand this until it is too late.
The imagery central to the poem is a cold, dark imagery. In the first stanza, the speaker tells of getting up early, out in the "blueblack cold" with "cracked hands". An opposing image of a blazing fire is used to accentuate the darkness. The second stanza uses some tactile imagery. "Cold splintering" when the "rooms were warm". The third stanza contains organic imagery: the speaker speaks "indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold".
The overall imagery is of coldness, in the contexts of visual, tactile, and organic imagery. The theme is revealed by giving three levels of insight towards the manner in which the father of the speaker was regarded.
“Those Winter Sundays” is crafted with images that leave a cold, hard feeling behind, echoing the relationship the speaker had with his father. The simple images in the poem, of the father tending to his labor, silently working for his family until there was an explosion of anger, suggests that these images were the [I]only[/I] aspects of their relationship. That the father and son were defined by the “chronic angers” of their house, and beside from that, the father worked without pause.
The tactile images and the way they are presented makes their relationship seem structured, routine, rather than loving. For example, in the first stanza, the images are given almost as a list in quick succession. As his father dressed, there was the “blueblack cold,” and his “cracked hands.”
What was interesting to me was how the speaker refers to his father as the man who “had driven out the cold,” when in the first stanza, his father seems to encompass this same coldness, going about his business without acknowledging his son unless in anger. But once it is too late, the speaker realizes that while his father acted coldly toward him, he was the one who drove the cold out of his life. I like the different meanings of ‘cold’ can be applied to both situations.
Those Winter Sundays is full of imagery. It's very cold and dark, a lot like the poem itself. There's many lines with imagery that have the word cold in them. "And put his clothes on in the blueback cold" in this line you can see how dark it is, while still in the morning, a good example of visual imagery."I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking" this is some fantastic auditory imagery that lets you hear the familiar sound of 'splintering, breaking'. The imagery helps the overall tone of the poem. It's cold and dark, a lot like the theme, regret.
In “Those Winter Sundays”, the imagery is very harsh, almost gives a feeling of brutality. The tactile imagery is very central to the poem as well as bit kinesthetic imagery such as how one can feel the tension and roughness that the father endures “with cracked hands that ached from labor” (3). As well as the feelings one receives while reading how the speaker fears “the chronic angers of that house,” and the use of the word chronic is substantial because Robert Hayden could have used other words like persistent or lasting, however, they do not give the same deep intense feeling of the word “chronic” does, of ongoing intense anger (9). One can feel the word chronic in the form of some sort of pain in their muscles or other places, which is definitely more effective.
There is also some uses of auditory imagery like when the speaker could “hear the cold splintering, breaking” the reader can hear crackling of ice and the bitter coldness that engulfed the house as well as the frigid temperature and lack of warmth that the speaker had, mentally and physically (6).
Thus after experiencing this intense and cold anger that the speaker had dealt with, the reader can develop a bit of understanding as why the speaker had resented his father and now why he has developed a deep sense of grief and regret, which is central to the theme of the poem, that the speaker had towards his father because he never understood and appreciated the simple yet harsh love his father had as well as the “lonely offices” or duties that his father had filled for him, until it was too late. One can easily place themselves in the speakers “shoes” and correctly interpret or sympathize with the entire situation because the imagery is extremely vivid and dense.
Robert Hayden’s poem reflected the tragic parts of a workingman’s life. He uses imagery to place you in the moment of when his father is working and how the speaker feels about his father at different times. The poem is very effective; because it uses words you do not typically expect to describe something. “put his clothes on in the blueblack cold” (line 2). I really like that line, because usually words like “dark” or “dim” would be used. He captured the moment with simple words. Also, the way Hayden arranges his words is admirable, “then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze” (lines 3-5). He combines two thoughts in one and makes you connect the images smoother likes a film.
In the second stanza, the first line makes a big impression, “…hear the cold splintering, breaking” (line 6). Obviously, the cold cannot break or splinter (the act of chipping something). However, you immediately think of a man working in the blueblack night with cracked hands and the sound of clanks and clings.
The poem has a darker more depression tone with imagery that supports feelings of dislike, irritation, misery, and regret. It uses the sense of sound and sight to give you a distinct impression of how the speaker felt about his father then and how he feels about him now.
The speaker and his father do not have the best of relationships. He (only assuming he because the author is male) does not speak about his father in loving tones. Descriptions of the father are more nonchalant. The words are sharp, like "blaze" and "blueblack" and "breaking." The father seems to simply be just there doing his own business. He provides warm for the family and the family does not acknowledge this act of hard labor.
Tactile and organic imagery dominate the poem. "Blueblack cold, / then with cracked hands that ached / from labor in the weekday weather made" the reader feel like the father is really suffering to provide comfort. It is very uncomfortable to be outside when you have to be outside during the winter. The speaker feels the change in temperature. He also feels something within himself like downheartedness (right adjective?). He recognizes that no one ever thanked his father or said a thing about his love.
The poem is sad like how winter is sad. Most people love winter because of the holidays and because of the weird beauty that it holds, but they also do not like it because it is so dreary. The poem holds a small regret - that no one ever thanked the speaker's father for loving them. It's like what Mr. Hartman told Mr. Wilkinson's last year's 7th period class repeatedly, "After school, go hug your mother because she loves you." You don't show your appreciation back and you should.
The cold is a continuing and central imagery that is present in "Those Winter Sundays." In the first stanza, the speaker describes a "blueblack cold," that presents a visual image of the early morning hue with the biting coldness of the winter morning. In the second stanza, the speaker reveals both auditory and tactile imagery in "hear the cold splintering, breaking." We are given the image of the cold being slowly fought off and the warmth beginning to fill the room. Through the central image of the cold, it helps to reveal the extent of unappreciation for the work that the father, who wakes up during the cold early mornings to provide warmth, for his family.
(Sorry for posting this on the blog so late JD! For some reason I was under the impression we should e-mail them to you so that's what I did first instead.)
When I first began reading Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays”, I was immediately struck by the author’s use of tactile imagery. I could not help but notice the attention he paid to temperature, a motif evident in the work as early as the first stanza, when the speaker describes his father’s Sunday habits (“Sundays too my father got up early/and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold”). I also could not help but notice the emphasis he placed upon texture – the speaker’s father’s hands are “cracked” and ache from their labor, the cold the speaker seems to hear is splintered and broken. Both temperature and texture seemed to directly affect the speaker’s tone and direction, with those moments of cold representing those things remaining unsaid between the speaker and his father, and those moments of heat representing those things as they were indeed said (the warmed rooms lead the speaker to fear “the chronic angers of that house”). I could not help but feel sad for the speaker, for the indifferent relationship he shared with his father, and I felt that, more than anything else, the poem was meant to inspire such sentiment in its readers, to evoke a mood of sorrow and remorse. It is clear that there is more to this relationship than just those aspects of behavior the speaker is able to notice, and he seems aware of that, saying in the last lines of the final stanza, “What did I know, what did I know/of love’s austere and lonely offices?” It is the father’s offices, it is his duties, that compel him to act as he does, and it is out of love that he feels any sense of duty, a love that the speaker regrets not having recognized sooner. It is a duty that reveals itself in the imagery already discussed, in those glimpses of the father’s work ethic (“cracked hands that ached/from labor in the weekday weather made/banked fires blaze”), of the father’s character (“…[He] had driven out the cold/and polished my good shoes as well”). The father is nothing if not noble, and he reveals such nobility in the Sundays of the poem’s title. He could not do so if not for the imagery provided, if not for the vivid portrait the author paints of him through his focus upon the sensations of hot and cold, through his emphasis upon the distinction between fixed and broken.
“Those Winter Sundays”, uses not only visual imagery, but auditory and tactile imagery as well. When reading this poem I could see the speakers father getting up in the cold morning and getting ready while making sure it was warm for when his child got up. The fathers hands are rough and aching from daily labor, trying to make things as comfortable as possible for his child. When the speaker states, ‘I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking’, (6) it’s easy to hear and visualize the thawing of the morning. One realizes just how cold the mornings were when the speaker describes the, ‘blueblack cold’, (2) of the morning air.
To me, the poem had a strong sense of regret. It’s seems that the speaker is recalling their childhood and remembering how their father used to get up early to make sure the rooms were warm for when he/she got up. Then the realization that they had never shown any appreciation for what his/her father had done to take care of them.
(sorry this post is so late JD, but I missed class on Thursday and was gone Friday and Saturday so I didn’t find out about posting it by Friday till yesterday. And then my computer wasn’t wanting to post it, so I had to post it this morning here at school).
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