Son`t Turmoil

A SON 'S TURMOIL

Robert Hayden 's Those Winter Sundays (1962 ) is reflective of the typical paternal-progenital relationship . It is not difficult to find an analogy between the poem 's message and our domestic relationships . The poem conveys life ! My choice of Those Winter Sundays ' is deeply influenced by its congruence with my life experiences . It is a perennial reminder of my filial inadequacies indebtedness and duties to my parents . In some ways , I deem a lot of families are trapped in that circumstance too- primarily because the parent-child age and

mentality differences , and reverential relationship create a communication and emotional divide , making it a challenge for them to resolve their issues

An ambience of indifference and gloom runs throughout the entire poem , giving it a distinct feeling of misery . Robert Hayden 's piece is a free verse and narrative in that the speaker (a son /daughter in this case ) narrates in a regretful tone his indifference and inadequacies as a child . Employing Sundays for the title Those Winter Sundays ' is suggestive of the circumstance when the family has to be together as an aggregate , unified force . There is an overriding religious and cultural reason for taking Sundays as universal rest days . The multiple use of the word cold (2 , 6 , 11 ) is meant to imbue the poem with a distinctive flair of gloom , indifference and lack of affection

The second line , And put his clothes on in the blueblack cold talks about the father putting on a firm , paternal resolve , feigning unconcern to his cold relationship to his child . Unfortunately , the hands skilled at protecting and providing for his family are the same hands that , for discipline 's excuse , are intimidating and creating a relationship divide between him and his children . With the father 's efforts , however , the son would wake and hear the cold splintering breaking- the collapse of the emotional and communication gap they are engulfed in . Fearing the chronic angers of the house ' is analogous to a progenital fear of approaching the paternal figure , often masked as reverential fear , and a domestic history of paternal indifference that drives his brood away

The indifferent remark , Who had driven out the cold , is suggestive of a child 's query on who made the domestic setting habitable , made life possible and initiated a process by which the whole family can achieve a sense of unity and warmth . The phrase , And polished my good shoes as well , is symbolic in that the mere fact of having good shoes in the midst of economic woes (a blue-collared job father is implied ) is telling of an extra effort on the paternal figure to provide not just for necessity , but for affordable luxury as well Polishing his good shoes is a sacrificial extra at making his progeny conform to society 's economic and cultural expectations

Regretful-toned as the poem may be it is not bereft of imagery . Its visual imageries includes . in the blueblack cold (2 , cracked hands that ached (3 , banked...