Poetry Analysis

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

 Sundays too my father got up early

and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

TPCASTT:

Title: Those Winter Sundays

Paraphrase: Warm love in a cold time

Connotation: unconditional warmth

Attitude: See connotation
Shift: From the harshness of cold winter work to the love of family ties
Title Revisited: Those Winter Sundays
Theme: Even though life is hard and requires conditional labor, love for family is unconditional regardless of circumstances;