Blog prompt: Read/work "Those Winter Sundays". What kind of imagery is central to the poem? How does that imagery work to reveal the theme of the poem—its emotional issues, as Sound & Sense puts it. And it is a help to recognize the speaker's present perspective, as question 4 would ask of you.
And be sure that you are aware of the meaning of the word "offices" as Hayden uses it.
Homework:
(a) To turn in: Answer the questions that accompany "To Autumn" ~ pay particular attention to numbers three and five. Poems that deal with the seasons frequently make metaphorical use of their place in the cycle of life. The times of day likewise often serve as metaphors.
(b) Read sections I-VII in Part 2 of the text: "Writing about poetry"
33 comments:
The speaker of 'Those Winter Sundays' is a man, grown up and reflecting on his childhood relationship with his father. This is apparent through the title, “those” Sundays of the past, and through the reminiscence of the speaker. Since the days of the poem, the speaker has matured and realized that he never showed love or gratitude to his father. He also sees that his father expressed his love through his laborious efforts to care for his family.
This poem relies heavily on imagery to convey the sacrifice of the father and the atmosphere of the household. Tactile imagery describes the cold outside and the heat indoors. In addition, it seems to me that “with cracked hands that ached” employs tactile as well as visual imagery to make you feel the evidence of the toils of the father. Another potent line is “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.” Here the speaker uses auditory imagery to characterize cold, which is a bit unconventional or unexpected, and consequently even more poignant. Through this imagery, we see and hear the events in the house, and understand how much the father did for his children. Simultaneously, it reveals the ungratefulness of the son, who gets up in the morning resentfully because he fears “the chronic angers of the house,” the house being the father who is forcing him to get ready. Later, the speaker regrets his lack of empathy toward his father.
The father worked hard every day, and then also on “Sundays too,” chopping wood and readying everyone for (I assume) church. In the last line, I think that “offices” is used to mean duties or responsibilities. The father’s “austere and lonely offices” refer to the incessant sacrifice and labor he performs for his family.
My apologies some of this was already stated in Tess’s post.
This was an enlightening piece of work. It expresses the growth a male speaker has undergone in understanding his father but can be applied to each and every one of us. We, as high school student, are usually those who “speak indifferently” to our parents and are unaware of the sacrifices that they give up, and saying “thank you” is a larger gesture than what it may seem.
Hayden employs the sense of touch mainly, with a bit of auditory imagery. (I can’t really smell or taste anything in this poem) An important aspect of this poem is the fatherly duty that is being performed in excruciating conditions. Hayden paints a picture by describing vividly the effects of cold, “cracked hands that ached” and “blueblacking cold,” these words make the reader shiver just reading them, now imagine actually being outside on a winter morning. Auditory imagery is used when the speaker is a child lying on the bed waiting to be called rather than helping his father. The “splintering” and “breaking” can be applied to the sounds that his father was making to get fire started, but it can also describe the “cold” as splintering and breaking to show further the conditions his father was working in, and there’s a tone of regret when he realizes what went on in his childhood.
There’s a sense of regret but he justifies his ignorance of his father’s actions on being a child, he says “what did I know.” His present perspective, I can only infer, is that he now is a father himself and can relate to those “austere and lonely offices.” Offices has a business-like connotation, but in context it means the duties and responsibilities a parent has to his family. They are not flattering jobs but they have to be done, and the grown speaker understands everything his father has done for him. There’s regret but also an understanding.
Question: I’m confused on the meaning of “fearing the chronic angers of that house.” Can someone shed some light for me?
Keli- I might be wrong in this, but I think that the "house" is referring to the father, the strong head of the household. Understandably, he was probably irritable towards his lazy, ungrateful kids at times. The speaker would get up in order to not be yelled at by his parents.
This poem felt really relatable for me. The speaker is telling us about his father who does so much physical and hard work to take care of his family. No one has realized how much he does...until now (after the fact). "What did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?"
The speaker even sounds a little pompous in the last paragraph, "what did I know." He acts as if it is completely not his fault for not realizing that his father's actions were out of love.
The imagery weaved within the poem gives it an extreme emotional appeal. At first the speakers tone seems guilty. He tells us how his father would get up in the "blueblack cold" and start the fire with his hurting hands to heat the house so everyone else could get ready in warmth. By saying the cold is blueblack, it adds ore emotional impact. The cold is not only, well cold, but the cold seeps in deep and dark. After that first paragraph you feel for the father.
Then in the second paragraph, "hear the cold splintering, breaking," you can actually hear and imagine the cold of the wood and floors heating up from the fire. The harshness of the words "splintering, breaking" add to the image and meaning. Later you can hear the tone of the speaker shift from the second to third paragraph. He is in such denial of his acting "indifferently" and not knowing of "love's austere and lonely offices".
I looked up the different definitions for offices and the only one that made sense to me is a service or task to be performed. So I agree with what Keli said that the chores or "offices" that the speaker's father did were things no one would really want to do but they maybe needed to be done and his father did them and did them out of love.
As Tess and Keli have both said already, the "offices" mentioned in the final stanza refer to the obligations one has toward his loved ones. In this case, it is hard work in the bitter cold that the father performs alone to maintain the comfort that his family lives in. Until he is older, the speaker takes this work for granted. As a child, his father "had driven out the cold/and polished his good shoes as well" and probably provided nearly everything he had. He did not recognize this, and saw his father only as an intimidating, demanding, and ill-tempered figure as the speaker describes: "fearing the chronic angers of that house." The adult speaker now realizes that his father's mood was warranted, given that as a child he had shown little appreciation and spoke "indifferently to him."
The unique imagery describing the cold stood out to me in this poem. Each time it is mentioned, the cold is described in a way that is rather peculiar. The visual imagery created by the line "and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold" and the tactile imagery of "I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking" make the biting cold of winter sound ever more harsh. This is also used by the speaker to portray the unappreciated labor that the father was performing. The line in the final stanza that reads "who had driven out the cold" seems like an image that the speaker uses to convey the criticism of his younger self. The cold was the true opposition and he could see, hear, and feel his father fighting it every Sunday. His discontent towards him, however, prevented the young speaker from appreciating his father's toil.
The poem’s effect is largely due to the imagery created by certain words. The poem’s speaker, I think, is regretting how he never realized his father’s unconditional love and care for him until he grew older. The title, “Those Winter Sundays” also contributes to the overall feel of the poem, as one may imagine a cold, crisp winter day. Somehow, the use of a winter day creates a certain gravity compared to if the poem was about a spring or summer day. A winter day is so much more serious and silent than a spring or summer day. The speaker reflects upon his past relationship with his father, only now realizing how loving his father was to him, even if he hardly showed it. The speaker says “Sundays too”, revealing that even during Sunday, a day of rest, his father woke up early and worked in the ‘blueback cold’. ‘Blueback cold’ gives a sense of a surrounding blue coldness in the air and at the same time, a sort of sadness associated with blue. ‘Cracked hands that ached’ and ‘cold splintering, breaking’ create imagery through the use of sounds and sight. The speaker describes his father warming up the place, possibly getting a fire started to warm his child. I imagine breaking, cracked, and splintering as something old and worn out would have. They also portray the sense of hardship and labor that his father would go through to provide for the speaker. The poem is about a father’s love for his child, and the speaker regrets this as he realizes it when he says ‘what did I know’, referring to love’s ‘austere and lonely offices’. Offices, in this sense, present the responsibilities of a parent that has to provide for a family. Even if his father was angry at him often,(Chronic angers of the house), the speaker understands the love his father had for him shown through these things.
With the opening line “Sundays too my father got up early” I could already envision a hardworking man who did everything in his ability to support for his family. With the simple word “too” the speaker conveys the fact that he acknowledges and admires his father’s hard work. As Tess mentioned, the tactile imagery in this piece is beautiful. The way the “Winter Sundays” are described by phrases such as “blueblack cold” and “cracked hands that ached” not only allows the readers to see the effects of the chilling winters but also feel it.
Since we have started this unit of poetry, I have been really surprised to find how much meaning can come from so little words. This poem, which depicts a simple scene of a father rising early in the morning to heat up the house for a family captures the essence of the relationship that the speaker had with his father. While the speaker reminisces on the past, readers can sense the regret in his tone that he never thanked his father and only spoke “indifferently to him”. The speaker yearns to be able to turn back time to appreciate the simple yet meaningful tasks that his father performed around the house. His father was an “austere” man who was very strict so as a child he lived more in fear of “the chronic angers” than with love for his father. However, looking back on his childhood, he realized how lonely and unappreciated his father must have felt.
“Those Winter Sundays” is a work full of emotional imagery based on kinesthetics. The speaker describes his hard-working father “with cracked hands that ached” and putting “his clothes on in the blueblack cold” (3, 2). Anyone who has emerged from warm bed into cold air can relate to the bitter cold feeling in the poem’s first section. It is a cheerless and disheartening ordeal, yet the speaker’s father gets up every morning, including Sunday, the traditional day of rest, to warm his household by splitting wood in the frosty morn. Sympathy evoked through this detailed description sets up the theme of the poem. At the abrupt conclusion of the paragraph, “No one ever thanked him,” the reader begins to understand the significance of his father’s hard work and the altered opinion the speaker currently possesses (5).
Juxtaposed to the imagery of icy but silent suffering is the depiction of the speaker still in bed “when the rooms were warm” (7). Instead of contentedness, as one would expect from a warm home in the middle of winter, the speaker conveys a tone of fear and uncertainty, dressing “slowly” at his father’s call, “fearing the chronic angers of that house” (8-9). At this age the speaker notices only the negative effects of constant and arduous work, sporadic bursts of anger. When one reads this paragraph explaining the speaker’s previous opinion of his father, the presence of his current outlook becomes clearer. Because the speaker realizes and mentions the pain of his father in his work, his present, more understanding perspective is revealed.
In the last paragraph of the poem, the speaker plainly recognizes the differences between the two attitudes and informs the reader of his remorse. He admits he spoke “indifferently to him, / who had driven out the cold” (10-11). Like a valiant protector, the speaker’s father battled away the elements at his own expense, and example subtle imagery utilized throughout the poem. He “polished my good shoes as well,” explains the speaker, hinting at his father’s tendency to not only provide his family with the necessities but with the luxuries he himself cannot afford (12). The speaker then ties off the poem with a synopsis of his changed views: “what did I know / of love’s austere and lonely offices” (14). The speaker’s fear as a child was because of misunderstanding his father’s true love. Quiet and tedious obligations were his father’s way of showing his love, a fact the speaker only now truly identifies.
In the first stanza the speaker says that his father “put his clothes on in the blueblack cold.” I had never hear these two colors used together to describe anything and I have never associated a feeling like cold with having a color before. I think it describes the darkness outside in the early morning but I also thought about the color that one’s lips turn when they become extremely cold. This directly contrasts with the heat that the father makes with the fire in the last line. The line “cracked hands that ached” uses visual and tactile imagery that leaves me imagining hands so dry and cold that they crack and bleed, which I imagine is very painful and makes everything more difficult for his father to do.
I’m confused as to why the speaker says he “hears the cold” instead of “feels.” Does anyone have an explanation? “Slowly I would rise and dress” is a direct contrast to the way his father gets up early, quickly and in the cold to put his clothes on. This shows that his father’s sacrifices make his life more comfortable. I think the second paragraph shows that the child is afraid of his father and respects him because he knows that his father is his authority, yet doesn’t understand that what is father is doing is out of love for him.
The final stanza is the adult looking back and realizing that he was “indifferent” towards his father even though he had made life easier for him and provided well for his family. I think he’s ashamed that he didn’t know what that his father was showing love towards him by devoting his time to the duties and responsibilities that come as a parent and provider. I don’t get the feeling that he’s making excuses for himself, but rather wishing that he knew them what he knows now.
“Those Winter Sundays” is a poem written by the speaker after reflection and change in perspective. It begins with a picture of the speaker’s father getting up early in the morning when the dark and cold are cruel. This is visual and tactile imagery. The reader can image these actions taking place, and almost feel the bone-chilling cold when the speaker describes it as “blueblack.” He puts on his clothes with “cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather.” From this tactile image of his pained cracked hands, the reader can infer that the speaker’s father is a tough man, relentless in his efforts to provide for his family. He then creates a fire to warm up the house for his family. Despite this obviously care and generosity, “no one ever thanked him.” The speaker’s father would wait until the rooms were warm and he’d wake up his child, the speaker of the poem at a younger age. The transition from cold to warm in the home reflects the change in the speaker’s view of his father. He once spoke “indifferently” to the man, but now seems to hold a greater appreciation for the conscientious way in which his father took care of him.
Kristen - I think that when the speaker says that he’d “hear the cold splintering, breaking,” he might be referring to the crackling sound of the fire. This fire eradicates the cold; it is breaking against the heat of the fire. This is also a great example of auditory imagery.
The speaker ends the poem with a simple question: “What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?” The appropriate definition of the word “offices” I found in this context is “something said or done by somebody to or for another person.” I’m not certain that it’s done out of obligation, as some have suggested, but perhaps out of love. From this poem, I sense that the father loved his child, and cared for him because he wanted to see him well. In the end, the speaker does not focus on the guilt or regret, but rather puts everything in perspective. He essentially recognizes that hindsight is twenty-twenty, and that he did not know enough when he was a child to appreciate what his father did.
Why must the speaker of the poem be a guy? Of all the poems we have analyzed, it always seems to be a guy doing the speaking. Why not a girl? Psychology does tell us that women tend to reflect more on past events and emotions than men. It seems more reasonable to me that a women is thinking about her father and how thankless we, as children, seem. Nevertheless, everybody seems to believe, and I agree, that this is a grown adult reflecting on his or her father.
The imagery in “Those Winter Sundays” is of a father, toiling tirelessly to make sure his children are warm and secure. In my mind, I see a middle-aged man with gray streaked through his hair, bending over a fire on a deathly cold winter morning to stoke the embers to a blaze while the kids upstairs snuggle warmly in their beds. His hands are cracked and “ached with labor”, yet he still does this job. His actions show his love for his children, not his words. The poem implies that the father was not the kindest or most loving of fathers, using words such as “austere” and “chronic angers”. The line “speaking indifferently to him” enforces this idea, since the children did not enthusiastically greet the dad.
The imagery reveals the theme by showing how much the father loved his children and did these thankless tasks for their benefit and comfort. “Those Winter Sundays” shows the father’s love without the dad explicitly telling the children so. The speaker laments at the very end, regretting that she never noticed her father’s love by stating, “what did I know, what did I know/of love’s austere and lonely offices.”
In “Those Winter Sundays”, the thankless actions of love and ungratefulness of youth are exposed as an adult reflects on the weekly toils his father performed. (Thank you Tess for reminding me of the importance of a summary sentence)
The imagery of coldness – which I can sympathize with as my fingers are aching from “blueblack cold” – is essential. The images are of “cold”, with the word itself repeated three times in the poem. The cold is severe; blueblack summons the imagery of frostbite, which can cause permanent damage. The chill that the father works so hard to drive out in the house – awakening early to prepare a fire - is still present in his relationship with the speaker. The imagery of the fire stands out as unique in this poem – the sounds of the fire are painted as “cold splintering, breaking”. I usually think of cold as tactile and as something that melts away, but the violence of the words adds to the suggested pain felt by the father. (Kirsten: as Alyssa points out, wood floors make popping noises when they heat up. Additionally, firewood can make some obvious noises. The son does not feel the cold because he is still in bed, he hears it disappear. Oh, I just read Bryn’s explanation. That works too.)
The father toils endlessly in love, but the indifference manifested by so many teens is not presented as anger in this poem, it is “austere and lonely” to the father. In fact his love is an office, a duty or action performed for others. The offices the father performs include an early awakening on his day off, preparing the fire, polishing his child’s shoes, and waking up his child once the house is warm. The reactions of the child are secondary images: the child moves “slowly” and speaks “indifferently”.
The speaker views these childhood experiences as an adult and experiences regret. He asks, and the repetition indicates desperation, “What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?”. Unlike Keli and Alyssa, I believe that the speaker is not trying to justify his behavior as a child; he is regretting his actions in the context of his present experiences. “What did I know” is not a statement, it is continued into the next line as question. With this view, the emphasis falls on what rather than I, and the line reads less pompous. The question as a whole indicates the speaker now has personal experience that would allow him to sympathize with his father’s toil.
P.S. I’m going to second Tess’s interpretation of “fearing the chronic anger’s of that house” – my personal experience backs it up. There are some arguments that occur over the same things over and over again.
P.P.S. J-Li, I believe the poem itself suggests the speaker is male. The fact the house is heated by firewood suggests a more traditional time period. It seems unlikely the father would polish his daughter’s shoes or that she would stay in bed while he prepared the house. These may be stereotypes of the 19th century that did not truly exist, but as the author lived in the 20th century, he was probably aware of how his poem would be experienced by a modern audience.
Like everyone else has noticed I too believe the speaker of the poem is an adult looking back on his (I think the speaker's a man, I just get that vibe) childhood and regretting how he treated his father. The imagery that arises with terms like "blueback cold" and "cracked hands that ached from labor" make the reader feel sorry for the man who lives this way, and sense it is the speaker saying these things one can assume he feels the same way, and how could one not? A boy's father wakes up early on freezing cold winter Sundays to heat the house for him and yet "no one ever thanked him" and the boy still spoke "indifferently to him". I get the sense that the father is a loving man who waits until the house has warmed before waking the rest of his family, polishes his son's church shoes (it is a Sunday so I assumed it was church that he needed his good shoes for). The son obviously feels his father's love by the way he presents his father as a man who puts his family's interests before his own and does everything he can to make their lives better. The meaning of the play is represented by the imagery of the father building a fire in the cold with cracked hands while his family sleeps in their warming rooms, and since it is the grown child who is speaking it becomes apparent that the child feels remorse for the way he treated his father and wishes he had helped, or at least thanked, him more often. This is all summed up in the last two lines of the poem: "What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?"
The imagery in "Those Winter Sundays" creates a mood and an atmosphere that set the somewhat regretful tone of the poem. Phrases such as the "splintering, breaking" cold and the father's "cracked hands that ached from labor" create connotations of poverty and a harsh life, and reveal how hard his father works so that his family can live. As others have said, the expression "blueblack cold" makes readers almost able to feel that cold, and to know exactly what the speaker is trying to say without him having to say "the really, really, really, freezing cold."
I have a couple different ideas about what the speaker means when he refers to the "chronic angers of that house". He could be talking about memories of bad experiences with his house--maybe he's had a love-hate relationship with his father, which is why he never really appreciated all he did for him. Or maybe he's just talking about the little things you notice about a house after you've lived there for a while--since this family doesn't seem too well-off, I would assume this house has a lot of cracks and drafty spots in the winter.
In the last stanza, I think that the speaker is more bitter about his ungratefulness at the time, listing all the things his father did for him that the speaker thought so little of then but now knows how loving the acts were. I believe "Those Winter Sundays" is about someone fondly remembering his father, and regretting that he never appreciated or realized how much he loved him until after he had grown up. Now that he is an adult, and has perhaps lost his father, he looks back on his childhood and realized that, although his relationship with his father may not have been perfect, his father really did love him, and back then, the speaker was fooling himself to think that he knew anything about what defined love.
“Those Winter Sundays” uses a combination of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic imagery to create the emotional poem. A grown-up man, who could possibly be a Father himself, reflects upon his childhood, which was spent ungratefully. His father worked hard to support his family, and made no complaints, excuses, but made a comfortable life possible for his children and wife. “Sundays too my father got up early.” Sundays, normally the resting day of the week, is meant for families to gather and go to Church together. Instead, his father gets up on cold Sundays, which are followed by a week of hard, nonstop work already, and warms up the house. Diction, such as “blueblack” creates a visual imagery for readers, as cold is usually in the form of the color blue, and black describes how “early” the father got up, even before the sun. “…with cracked hands that ached” shows how worn out his hands are, and further describes the winter atmosphere and feel. “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking” is an example of auditory imagery, in which we can actually hear the cold melting away as the father builds a fire inside the house. I feel like the line, “and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,” can work as kinesthetic imagery, because we all know what it feels like to change from our comfy pajamas to stiff, rough, and cold outdoor clothing in the morning. The father makes a lot of sacrifices by driving out the cold, and leaving polished shoes in front of the doorstep. With not a simple “thanks,” or hospitality, he lives in “love’s austere and lonely offices,” meaning difficult work that a father role is obligated to do in order to express his love towards his family. More like, the duties that a father does for his children, knowing that his parents did the same for him.
"Those Winter Sundays" is a poem about a man's reflection, gratitude, and change of perspective the speaker has towards his father. The speaker conjures up imagery of his father awaking to go to work in the dead of winter to provide for his family, an act that went unappreciated by the speaker for most of his childhood. The speaker is somewhat regretful that he took his father for granted and never realized just how hard his father worked or how much he loved him.
The speaker uses wintry imagery to portray the cold household in which he grew up where there was a lot of tension within the family. Imagery portrayed by phrases like "blueblack cold" and "cold splintering, breaking" combined with ones like "chronic angers" and "speaking indifferently" denotes that the speaker had a rough home life that was far from pleasant. As he looks back on his childhood, he is more understanding of the situation now and sympathizes for his hardworking father, who worked to provide for his family.
The juxtaposition of hot and cold, in terms of imagery and diction, really adds to the theme of the speaker trying to understand his father's loving, but cold attitude towards his family. His father was bound by commitment to his central role as a provider, and subsequently, has less time to devote to his role as a caring, friendly father figure that the speaker wants. The word offices represents the speaker's father's sole commitment and responsibility of working to make ends meet. His father undoubtedly worked very hard to try to do so hence the "cracked hands that ached from labor".
The speaker is truly remorseful that he did not understand his father when he was younger and over time, has come to see the sacrifices his father has had to make for the sake of his family.
My first impression of the relationship between the speaker and the father is one that I've seen portrayed time and time again in movies, plays, books, and reality: a father who seems rough and above emotions with a son who doesn’t understand how to connect with him. I don’t mean that the father doesn’t feel; only that he doesn’t express his emotions in traditional, open ways.
I felt that the overall imagery of the poem was regretful and cold. When the speaker remembers his childhood, he doesn’t mention a warm time, in summer maybe, where there was a feeling of general affection. Instead he recalls a morning that is “blueblack” cold (which makes me think of frostbite, that sort of dead blue color) with splintering and breaking wood as the house warms and a fire lit by a man with “cracked hands that ached”. The speaker could have chosen words like frosty, popping, or calloused, which are lighter, but instead they chose blueblack, splintering, breaking, and cracked. . These words give the image of something falling apart, possibly like the father-son relationship. There is a lot of repetition in this poem. (I’m sorry, I feel like I’m sort of drifting from imagery to diction, but I feel that in this case, the diction creates the imagery) The word cold appears three times, one in each section. There is also a repeated “Kuh” sound throughout the whole thing: "blueblack", "cold", "cracked", "ached" "breaking" and “chronic”. The sound is harsh and hard.
It’s the little details that people seem to remember when they are regretting something. Things you never appreciate until you don’t have them anymore. That’s the case in this poem. The speaker is remembering how his father, despite how tired he was, would wake up every Sunday and light the dying fires, and how he polished his shoes. These little acts of love probably didn’t seem like love to a young boy, and as he says, “no one ever thanked him”. That line as well as the repeated of line, “What did I know, what did I know” is remorseful and nostalgic. The speaker is wishing that he had understood that his father did love him before it was too late. Which sounds like a melodramatic soap opera storyline, but please just try to look past that.
Two last little pieces that don’t really have something to connect them to:
1. The line “speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold” is ironic. Here, the speaker talks to his father in a cool and detached fashion, when the father just tried to get rid of the cold in the house
2. Do you think that the father has died and that is why the speaker is looking back? Or is it possible that the two have just grown far apart?
The Father, awaking every Sunday to warm the house, sticks most clearly in my mind. This man is not a boisterous fellow, with his “cracked hands that ached”, the Father is envisioned as the silent, diligent types, stoic in the fulfilling of the jobs for which “No one ever thanked him.” The Father is also associated with warmth, and an image of a safety and security in a warm house. Throughout the poem there is the sense that the father is wise in his deeds, but this wisdom, much like his deeds, go practically unnoticed by the speaker.
The speaker writes of these memories of his Father from a later standpoint, a perspective in which he is feelings the same way, going through the same motions his Father had, so many years ago. Possibly the speaker has become a Father himself, experiencing “love’s austere and lonely offices”. I feel the speaker, like most people, expected fatherhood, and moreover, love, to be all sunshine and flowers. With the poem the speaker is addressing the passiveness, the pain, the solidarity, which can make loving so difficult.
With words like “blueback”, “cracked”, “splintering”, and “breaking”, images of sound and touch are built. I felt “offices” could be interpreted as rooms, in lew of a more literal analysis of the poem, as in the lonely rooms of the lonely house.
One line gave me some trouble- “When the rooms were warm, he’d call and I’d slowly rise and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house”. I was wondering what the “chronic angers” could be? I think it is deeper then simply the father. Perhaps this part connects quite primarily with the emotional side of the poem. I felt the “chronic angers” could be the recurring emotions of his family; the issues never resolved, or like Lindsay said, issues that never seem to be resolved.
Overall I felt the speakers tone to be almost resentful to himself, for “speaking indifferently”. But by then asking “What did I know, what did I know”, whimsically, not condemning naiveté, he seems to reinforce that this ignorance is necessary to later gain hindsight and wisdom.
I feel as though tactile and organic imagery is central to this poem. The phrase "blueblack cold" strikes me. I think of a bad bruise and how much it hurts. This imagery gives a sense of how cold "cold" really is. The phrases "cracked hands" and "cold splintering" also have a strong affect. I think about how some tactile pain can hurt so bad it gives you a sick feeling, which is where organic imagery comes in for me.
I also started thinking of Marlow from "Heart of Darkness" after reading this poem. I know Marlow and the speaker of "Those Winter Sundays" have completely different issues but what I connected was how emotional strain turned in to physical sickness-in a way. As I mentioned earlier, I get a sense of organic pain from the tactile imagery, and yet the theme of the poem is regret and understanding, emotional issues.
I believe the speaker is now a father himself, and is looking back on his childhood understanding his father's actions and regretting his actions. The phrases "no one ever thanked him" and "what did I know, what did I know" give a sense of regret, and also shows that it was in the past. The fact that the speaker is looking back on this and thinking about it, and talks about "love's austere and lonely offices" (which offices in this case refers to duties) shows a grown understanding.
I read the little note Tess made about the "house" being the father, and I hadn't thought of that. I think that is a very valid point, however, I took it as the literal house and the chronic angers being the chronic cold. If "house" does, in fact, stand in for father, it puts me off a little because I don't get the sense of an angry father throughout the poem.
One year for Christmas my parents got us kids an extensive Little House on the Prairie DVD Collection. I think the shows were originally aired on TV but we were lucky enough to receive them in a boxed set! I don’t know if anyone else has seen this splendid show, that’s right, those shows with the acting now viewed as horrible and ancient special effects, but I thought of Pa when I read this. I pictured their little log cabin and Pa out cutting the mornings wood.
The speaker’s use of imagery leads me to these vivid thoughts and emotions of reminiscence. Line 3 reads, “then with cracked hands that ached” and employs both tactile and visual imagery. I’m filled with that feeling I get when I see others people’s weathered hands, that feeling where I need to find lotion right then; however, I also picture the man who has worked to the breaking point to support his family, and then worked a little more. This latter is the feeling that conjures up my emotions.
The last line of the first stanza ends with “No one ever thanked him.” When I read this, the phrase hit me hard. Its placement gives it obvious emphasis and its concise language makes its message clear. I think this phrase also gives us, the reader, insight into the author’s perspective. His use of “thanked” not thanks tips us off to the fact that the speaker is looking back on a time in his life. His recognition of the lack of gratitude shows us that he has grown and matured and is brought up again in the second to last lines. “What did I know, what did I know”.
The speaker presents “Those Winter Sundays” looking back from the past, regretting his ungratefulness for all the work his father put in for him. In the first line, the word “too” implies that he works each day of the week, even on Sunday when he should be given a break. Imagery helps intensify the hardness of the labor the father goes through. There is a clash between the “blueblack cold” and the blazing fire of the forth line. This clash is repeated in the second paragraph, which evokes more sensory feelings of warmth and cold. The imagery gives the reader a feeling as to how hard the father works, since he is able to change the blistering cold into a “warm room.” The speaker as a child appears in my mind as a grumpy, unsatisfied child who doesn’t appreciate the extent of his father’s care. He rises slowly, like one not eager to meet the results of his father’s care. The last two lines lament at this ungratefulness. The “offices” implies both the duty of the father to care and alludes to the work he must put in. The description of his hands as “cracked” and aching also serve to show the effort one must put into loving someone, and those hands to work polishing “his good shoes as well,” giving the reader even more visuals to cope with.
Also, austere seems to be a favored word among poets.
Hayden uses various images of the cold to reveal the theme(s) of the poem. It can be implied from the first line, “Sundays too my father got up early”, that his father also woke up early on other days to heat the house—which shows that he got little rest. The description of the “blueback cold” and “cracked hands that ached/from labor in the weekday weather” provide further evidence of his labors. However, “No one ever thanked him.”—a caring father whose labors were unappreciated.
In the second stanza, the cold “splinters”—“breaking”—as the house warms. It seems that the speaker is reluctant to get out of bed as “slowly I would rise and dress”. I’m not sure what “the chronic angers of that house” refers to.. But it’s certain that the “house” is not his father because one would not speak “indifferently” to someone they “fear”—from the third stanza.
In the third stanza, the speaker recalls that his father had “polished my good shoes”—probably for church. The last line—“What did I know, what did I know”—could be interpreted as an excuse, but the speaker really DIDN’T know. When we’re children, we don’t always realize or understand the sacrifices our parents make for us. And it isn’t ‘til we’re older that we look back and realize how thankful we should be/should have been.
I find that the word “offices” really sums up the father’s character and his son’s attitude towards his love. One of the definitions of “office”, according to Dictionary.com, is “a service or task to be performed; assignment; chore”. The connotation is not especially flattering, as it suggests a sort of passive submission to a mundane occupation (makes you think of those guys in that TV show of that same name). Contrary to the traditional, romanticized version of parental love, this father’s love for his family is born out of necessity, out of a sense of inalienable duty. This is not to say that the dad resents having to provide for his family; rather, this characterization of his love shows how closely bound he feels to his family and how firm he is in his relationship to his son.
The images sensed from the word “offices” are reinforced by the adjectives “austere” and “lonely”, both showing the puritanical simplicity of the father’s love and the sternness of his personality, probably shaped by years of toil in the “weekday weather”.
The imageries used in this poem reflect the harshness of the winter morning weather, and by extension the uncompromising strength of the father who “had driven out the cold”. Hayden uses some unconventional images, such as “blueblack cold”, associating the temperature with the color of the sky at the coldest time of the day, and “cold splintering, breaking”, associating cold to frail twigs and fire sparkles that crackle in the frigid air. The feeling of cold dominates over the feeling of warmth, although the listener do feel the contrast between the outside and the sheltered inside. Hayden concentrates on the cold part probably because the conditions in his childhood were so harsh that he remembers his father as merely fighting against unfavorable elements rather than providing comfort for the family. Realizing this years later, Hayden finally understands what strength it took for his father to persist in carrying out those “austere and lonely offices” year after year despite the constant struggles he had to go through, and laments his childish ignorance by asking, “What did I know, what did I know”.
(I have a sort of technical question: when you are talking about poetry, do you use the present tense like you do with drama and prose narrative? This poem is like a memoire, so I ended up using past tense. Is that okay in this case?)
Well, I had everything for this assignment typed up and ready... and the electricity on our street stops. *Poof* Assignment gone.
Now that I have "appropriately" redirected my frustration, I will give this another try. Please excuse me if it sounds choppy, blunt, and radiates a bit of anger, too.
I first want to explore the meaning of "fearing the chronic angers of that house". It is tempting to interpret that as the author's fear of his father, the "head of the house", but don't believe that to be the case for several reasons. 1) The poem is full of regret, regret for not appreciating his father's hard work and all he has done to provide for the family Possibly even regret for not having had a closer relationship. Had his father been angry and destructive, I believe the poem would then have a different feel. 2) the speaker of the poem states "chronic angers of THAT house". I may be getting to literal or searching too hard, but "that" implies that there were more than one of something. If he were referring to his father, it would seem to mean he were speaking of one particular head of house, as opposed to the others in his family, which, to me, does not make sense in the context of the poem. And,3), as already mentioned, the speaker's admitted indifference towards his father as a child.
I do like Kathy's point about the connotation of the word "offices". An implication of a certain professionalism, detachment, and obligation. "Austere and lonely offices" creates a cold image for me, and with the words "Winter", "blueback cold", "cracked", "splintering", "breaking", put to mind a child who keeps an icy distance from his father and a man who works hard and suffers pain in order to provide for the family he loves.
"Those Winter Sundays" shares an intimate and personal look into the relationship between the speaker, undoubtedly Hayden, and his father. This particular experiance happened when the speaker was young;this is evident by the lament at the very end of the speakers futility of perception at the time,"What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?"
Even Sunday was not a day of rest for the father; he still toils to provide for his family. Auditory as well as visual imagery are essential to this poem. The 'blueblack cold' contrasts with the 'fires blaze'. The imagery of cold goes beyond the temperature of the room to expose the unappreciative mood of his family while he does his thankless work. Here the past tense exhibits the speakers regret and delayed recognition.
"Cold splintering, breaking" bolster the previous "blueblack" ice by using auditory and tactile imagery. While the room might be warm now thanks to the father it still carries the chill of a bitter domestic situation, "chronic angers of that house,"
In the final section the speaker is ashamed of his behavior and his apparent lack of perception of unselfishness."what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices",this part shows the acquired understanding and sophistication he lacked as a youth.
The choice of "offices" expresses the professionalism of the father in doing his duty without fail no matter the reception.
This poem has imagery that presents it as a man's reminiscence and regret of his relationship with his father. When the speaker says, "What did I know, what did I know...," he expresses a deep regret at his misunderstanding and indifference towards his father. Certain words in the poem create an image of "cold." First, in describing the cold as "blueback" and then his father's "cracked hands" the speaker presents this idea of cold. However, based on the regret that pours through his poem, the cold is symbolic of his demeanor towards his father. The speaker said "I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking..." In a parallel sense, I get the idea that the speaker's relationship with his father is also splintering, breaking. His indifference towards his father, the care taker, is breaking their relationship. The importance of this poem as a memoir is that is shows that the speaker now understand and regrets his indifference. Because "Sunday" is in the title and "Sunday's" are the day that the father also get's up early, I think that the speaker's dad was preparing for a morning meeting at church. The speaker as well, was preparing for church, but out of necessity and with indifference. He "slowly...would rise and dress..," as if he was not looking forward to it. The speaker seems to regret that after everything his father did for him, he couldn't willingly do something like go to church for his dad.
I agree with many before me that the use of the word "office" when describing love is significant. The speaker realizes that his dads stoic actions and labors were acts of love. He regrets the loneliness associated with these "offices." Though his father never expected seemed to expect anything from his work, the speaker seems to regret his indifference and inability to acknowledge his father's work.
Visual imagery is central to this poem. While the poem does have some other types of imagery, namely auditory imagery, visual imagery is at the core of the poem. The first instance of visual imagery is "blueblack cold." This conjures up images of frozen or perhaps even, as Lindsey said, frostbitten skin. Visual imagery is again used to describe the "cracked hands" of the narrator's father. Perhaps the most powerful image, in my opinion, was the "splintering, breaking" of the cold. While this is presented as a sound in the poem, to the reader it is a visual image. For example, I imagined a cold block of ice melting and breaking into pieces. This imagery is particularly powerful, because in poetry, anything that clashes is the most noticeable, and can have the greatest effect.
Visual imagery is the most effective in portraying emotion. Emotions are most strongly associated with images rather than sounds or other senses. Images are most likely to stick in your mind--this is why someone with a photographic memory can remember things well. The narrator of the story remembers the images most strongly, the "blueblack cold" and the "cracked hands" stick out most strongly in his mind. This also leads to the theme of the poem-- that our memories are not always accurate, and our emotions can influence what we remember. The narrator in the poem is clearly reflecting on his childhood, and he regrets that he was unable to recognize everything that his father did for him--"love's austere and lonely offices."
The visual and kinesthetic imagery of the first stanza is particularly powerful. It makes me imagine a man who is the type who wakes up slightly before his alarm goes off. He stares at it, the “blueback” light cutting through the blinds. Right as it is about to sound he silences it and goes on his way. The description, “with cracked hands that ached”, is very luminous because it conveys a sense of old age, unrelieved labor, and even a tactile feeling of a continuous throbbing pain. The sense of loneliness is also quite biting. The final statement of the stanza, “No one ever thanked him,” makes his labor almost noble.
The second stanza begins with a near audible depiction of a roaring fire. The use of “would” (“he’d call” and “I would rise”) generalizes the situation. This generalization is important because it reflects the recall of certain circumstances, not a specific memory. The speaker furthers this idea through the word, “chronic” which is used to describe his father’s anger. It also conveys a feeling of emotional detachment.
In the final stanza, the speaker fully realizes his lack of owed appreciation for his father. Their relationship was by no means close, but his father provided for him. The repetition (“What did I know, what did I know”) gives a frantic and emotionally intense peak to the end of the final stanza. His final statement reflects sorrow and more importantly, a plea for forgiveness. It’s as if he is pleading, “I didn’t know, I didn’t know of love’s grave and lonesome labors.”
Since the poem is clearly and consistency in the past tense, I think it’s fair to assume that the poem reflects upon the past. Also, the poem displays emotional maturity to the extent that at least I believe that a significant amount of time has passed. I entertain the notion that the speaker’s father has died, because the more I read the poem, the more it sounds like a eulogy. Roughly summarized I find the structure of the poem to be, “He did so much and no one ever thanked him,” then “I remember how hard he struggled,” then “I didn’t appreciate him enough,” and finally, “if only I knew what I understand now.” Eulogies roughly share the same structure.
Imagery works like the wheel of this poem, using it as the driving force to place the poem in front of the reader. The title of this poem seems to me a bit displaced than the actual plot of the poem. “Those Winter Sundays”, just reading the title before getting to the poem makes me think that the poem will be about a winter Sunday, and how a family spends it in the warmth. To the contrary the poem is about a hard working man, who even works the winter Sundays. The imagery used in this poem makes the dull shine, “from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze”. The fire blazing creates a warm image, which adds to the harsh mood of the poem. The imagery makes the reader easily relate to the idea of the poem when the speaker describes certain items, “splintering, breaking”, relate to the theme of the poem. The emotional issue present in this poem is the harsh life style of the man the speaker describes. The overall imagery of this poem brings together the emotional aspects of the work.
There is a transition in the last stanza of the poem, “Speaking indifferently to him, who had driven out the cold”. The speaker realizes the actual subject matter of the context and elaborates it further in this stanza. The speaker is regretful that he did not understand his father over time and not the time has become too late.
Wish I could have got to this blog before we got to it in class, but with the play and registering for college classes I never made it through my weekend to-do list to get to this.
Well, like we talked about in class, tactile is the prevalent sense in this poem. I think this is key because it really gets you in tune with the perspective of the adolescent in this poem. Frequently the tactile, obvious senses are the ones that youth focus on. Have you ever tried getting a group of youth to focus on an assignment while it was too hot or too cold or too noisy. You probably have, so you probably know it's easy for youth to get hung up on the physical trials of life.
When the speaker says the rose, “Fearing the chronic angers of that house,” I did not think of an abusive father. Rather I thought of a teenager who is constantly asked to do something they don’t want to do; do the laundry, take a hike, build moral character, an abusive father would not wait until he had stoked the fire to rouse his children. He would make them stoke the fire. This leads me to believe that the father truly loved his children, a fact that the speaker recognizes and laments his close-mindedness, “What did I know, what did I know of loves austere and lonely offices?” This brings us back to the tactile imagery. It’s provides the reason for close-mindedness. While as a child he focused on the difficulties of living in a world of blue-black, rather than acknowledging the people who strove to make his world a little warmer.
I really love this poem. You get so much from such a short amount of lines. The main imagery used in "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden is touch. You can feel those cold mornings right along with the father and his cold cracked hands. You can feel the “fires blaze” warming the rooms. The cold house turned warmed could almost be the speakers feelings towards their father. In their youth the speaker and their father didn’t quite get along but now, maybe after the fathers passing, they appreciate their father so much more. "What did I know, what did I know" the speaker didn't understand all their father did for them. Just as the room being warmed in the morning, it takes some time.
In the poem you know the father loved the speaker. He worked everyday, even on the weekends, for the speaker. The speaker realizes the power of actions over words. Even though they may have not gotten along with words, (“Chronic angers of the house”) the father's actions showed his love.
Well, this soooo late, but as it is spring break and I actually have time to do this post, I might as well do it to make it up since I was absent I think....
Imagery that I find important to the poem is that first description of the cold calling it blueblack. That reminds me of the color of a really bad bruise when you first relize that its there. Its a sudden shock of pain that can radiate throughout the entire afflicted limb. I share a similar opinion to Callie, the rough and tumble father who is reticent with his emotional expression and a son who may end up being picked on by his father because he is more sensitive and therefore open with his emotions which the father could consider a weakness. The speaker gives special emphasis to the blueblack cold, his father's cracked hands and the sound the cold makes as it leaves the house as it warms up. Your hands can crack from the cold and from being too dry and its very painful. He mentions them thus because of how important hands are to a farmer's job. Everything is done with the hands, holding tools or reins or driving, lifting heavy objects, patting cows or horses with affection etc. I really like the image of the cold splintering and breaking because that's a physical change that can actually be seen like when you defrost the windshield of your car. It has a very distinct sound: it can sound like a gunshot or like water gurgling in a stream, but this is an extremely the speaker is mentioning and would sound like the former.
This leads to the emotional themes of the poem. No one ever thanked their father for his extra work starting the fires for them. Its his quiet, unemotional way to show his wife and children that he really does love them. No one thinks him because he wouldn't even listen, he would bursh the thanks off like so much nonsense. All practicality.
Well, all I can say is sorry. I'll bring in tissues or something.
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