Those Winter Sundays Figurative Language
An Analysis of “Those Winter Sundays”
The title “Those Winter Sundays”has a double meaning to it. On one hand, the title can be taken literally, meaning the poem speaks of the days of the winter season that the author’s father would wake up early to make fires and warm the house. However, the title can also be taken another way. The word “winter” in the title could also refer to the cold, indifferent way the narrator treats his father and how empty and frigid the relationship between the narrator and his father seems to be. Hayden’s use of two meanings in the title makes it all that more significant and poignant. “Those Winter Sundays” features numerous instances of figurative language. The line, “blueblack cold” is an example of both alliteration
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Throughout the first two stanzas, the speaker speaks of his father bitterly, as if he resents him. The way Hayden has written the speaker makes it seem like the speaker is young and immature for the majority of the poem. For example, in the first stanza, the speaker talks about how his father had worked and toiled all week to support the family and still gets up early on Sundays to start the fires. Despite this, the line “No one ever thanked him” reveals how ungrateful the speaker was towards his father. In the second stanza, the speaker describes how his father would not wake him until the house was warm, once again showing the kindness of the father. However, the poem takes on a solemn tone at the end of the second stanza with the line “fearing the chronic angers of that house.” This line makes the reader question if the father is actually kind or instead fought with and perhaps even abused the speaker. The final stanza features a major shift in tone as the way the author speaks about his father changes. In this stanza, the speaker seems to be more mature and regretful of the way he treated and viewed his father when he was younger. The line, “What did I know, what did I know,” shows that the speaker is now aware and appreciative of all his father sacrificed. At this point, the speaker has realized that he did not understand his father at all when he was younger. The speaker’s view on his father has become
Sacrifices Revealed In Gary Soto's Those Winter Sundays
633 Words | 3 PagesLine 10 says, “Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold and polished my good shoes as well.” The father definitely did a lot for the son, and for the family. Line 5 exclaims, “No one ever thanked him.” The father would sacrifice many things
Rhetorical Analysis Of What Is Snow Like
663 Words | 3 PagesDoyle captures the beauty of snow throughout its physical transformations. He humanizes snow throughout the text using the word female in his sentence “Snow is like when female cottonwood trees let go of vast gentle quantities of fluffy seed pods all at once in spring.'' We often connect the adjective “female” to living beings; by including this in his text he creates the image of snow in a life-like approach. His word choice is important in this sentence, allowing us to witness the movement of snow without being in its vicinity. His mention of cottonwood seed pods provides an impression for those who have yet to experience snow, assuming the audience has seen cottonwood during warm seasons.
Compare And Contrast To Kill A Mockingbird And Those Winter Sundays
655 Words | 3 PagesThe poem states “speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold, and polished my good shoes as well.” (Hayden) This illustrates that the father does a lot of work for the son yet the son still opposed his kindness by showing he did not care. The poem also states that, “then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fire blaze. No one ever thanked him.” (Hayden) This proves that the father worked endlessly through the pain during all sorts of bad weather to provide for his family although no one ever thanked him.
Snow Day By Billy Collins
161 Words | 1 PagesHere the poem takes an unanticipated turn, and he speaks of what the children are talking about. This irony makes the poem less about the snow day itself and more about
Charlotte's Web Analysis
855 Words | 4 PagesIn Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, a pig named Wilbur experiences a series of emotions through the story and his life is saved twice by two dedicated friends, Fern, the little girl and Charlotte, the spider. White achieves to show that life is intertwined with both good and bad. (Nodelman 126) White demonstrates a real friend will help you even if he or she has nothing to gain from doing so. With the care, love and sacrifice he receives from Fern and Charlotte, he has grown to be caring, kind and selfless person with strong determination.
Robert Hayden's 'Those Winter Sundays'
1117 Words | 5 PagesJack Akers Instructor: Mary Wallace English 102-01 26 February 2018 Love and guilt: An explication of Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” In the poem “Those winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, Hayden experiences both the feelings of love and guilt for the way he treated his father while he was growing up. In the poem, Hayden reflects back on the things that his father did for him, not out of necessity but out of love. At the time, Hayden took these things for granted and never fully appreciated the things that his father had done for him until years later when it was too late.
My Papa's Waltz And Those Winter Sundays Analysis
871 Words | 4 Pages“Those Winter Sundays” has a sad dark tone. “Speaking indifferently to him” (Line 10). It is clear that there is little communication between the father and the son. The author remembers how his father woke up early to heat the house and worked hard to provide for the family. Although this poem is much sadder, it still shows love.
To Kill A Mockingbird Snow Quotes
866 Words | 4 PagesThe snow in the story stands for the whites overpowering the blacks. The snow covers dirt and the dirt stands for poverty/the black community. Where snow stands for the white community. Atticus says, “I quote- ‘As it has not snowed in Maycomb County since 1885…”(Lee 73). This quote shows that the snow has not come for a long time.
My Papa's Waltz And Those Winter Sundays
683 Words | 3 PagesEvery story consists of different elements, such as characters, plotlines, and settings. Nonetheless, many stories portray the same messages or ideas. “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, depicts a reckless father who is loved by his child, while “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, depicts a hardworking father whose child is indifferent to him. Though the poems depict exceptionally different childhoods, both contribute to the idea that perceptions of parents alter as one grows into adulthood. Both poems use harsh words and critical tones in order to convey this notion, however in “My Papa’s Waltz,” they signify the recklessness of the father and how the narrator perceives his father as an adult, while in “Those Winter Sundays,” they
Dexter's Use Of Irony In Winter Dreams
728 Words | 3 PagesOn the surface it seems as though “Winter Dreams” is a romantic story about the love Dexter, a young man who aspires to surpass his middle-class background, has for Judy, a privileged young woman born into wealth. The moral of the story is about being one’s own worst enemy, and falling victim to our malformed impressions and ideals of the the world and our inability to independently define our own self-worth. The intro of “Winter Dreams” exposes Dexter's character when the narrator says, “Some of the caddies were poor as sin and lived in one-room houses with a neurasthenic cow in the front yard, but Dexter Green's father owned the second-best grocery store in Black Bear.” The use of the simile, “poor as sin” establishes Dexter’s repugnance of poverty.
How Does Billy Collins Use Imagery In Snow Day
573 Words | 3 PagesAfter reading Snow Day, by Billy Collins, and Facing It, by Yusef Komunykaa, both poems were filled with a lot of imagery. However, one poem (although describing concrete) was more abstract or using concepts terms, rather than the other poem which was using more concrete or touchable terms. The poem, Snow Days, continuously depicts tangible items throughout such as, snow, landscape, mouse, buildings, tea, radio, children to name a few. Billy Collins, poem invokes imagines of many concrete or touchable items.
Poem Analysis: The Minefield By Diane Thiel
282 Words | 2 PagesThe father told them this like it didn’t even phase him anymore, “My father told us this, one night, and then continued eating dinner”, he was numb to it. Everything the father did after this, or in the last stanza, was influenced
Comparing Poems 'Piano And Those Winter Sundays'
659 Words | 3 PagesThough both poems have a different conflict they both have a memory from the past that will stay with them. In “Those Winter Sundays” the speaker's life seems cold, from his relationship with his father to the actual cold snowy weather outside. The poem is very straightforward as well as has the reader connect the dots. The speaker's father works a lot and sounds like all he does is work to keep the family to a stable living.
What Did I Know By Hayen Literary Devices
405 Words | 2 PagesThe literary device that makes this poem most enjoyable to me is the universality. This poem is relatable to anyone who reads it because all kids are mean to their parents when they are young and ignorant. Even on a more surface level, everyone can relate to having some kind of regret in their life. Everyone has at least one thing that they can look back years ago and still feel a pang of guilt about. In the thirteenth line, Hayen dedicates eight syllables and one whole line to a question--without an answer.
Let Her Go Poem Analysis
778 Words | 4 Pages“Let her go” is an emotional song which covers the reality of human life. This song is written for those people who lost their beloved ones in their life. Someone said “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone.” It means when we have someone in our life we never give importance to that person. The absence of beloved person made us feel how important they were in our life.
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