Those Winter Sundays Rhetorical Devices
The Winter Sundays
By: Robert Hayden
Explication
In the sonnet “Those Winter Sundays”, the theme is the warmth of the coal fire becomes the warmth of the love that radiates throughout the house. An adult speaker presents memories of how his father expressed love for him through his actions. In particular, the speaker remembers that his father rose very early on Sunday mornings to stoke the furnace fire. Only when the house was warm did he awaken his son to dress. Line 12 notes that the father also polished his son's "good shoes," indicating that he will be taking or sending his son to church. Thus, the father takes seriously the moral upbringing of his boy. The phrase "chronic angers" in line 9 is open to interpretation. It could mean that sternly scolds his son from time to time or that arguments are commonplace in the household. It seems clear, though, that he is a good father. He accomplishes his Sunday tasks with aching, skin-cracked hands subjected during the week to the fierce cold he endures on the job. The adult speaker regrets now that he never took the time to thank his father for his concern and love. …show more content…
The poem contains no end rhyme; it does contain internal rhyme, in lines 2-6 and 8 &10. The use of short words containing hard consonants are clothes, blueblack, cold, cracked, ached, weekday, banked, thanked, wake, breaking, call, chronic, speaking. These words emphasize the hardness of life for the speaker's father.
The Winter
By: Robert Hayden
Explication
In the sonnet “Those Winter Sundays”, the theme is the warmth of the coal fire becomes the warmth of the love that radiates throughout the house. An adult speaker presents memories of how his father expressed love for him through his actions. In particular, the speaker remembers that his father rose very early on Sunday mornings to stoke the furnace fire. Only when the house was warm did he awaken his son to dress. Line 12 notes that the father also polished his son's "good shoes," indicating that he will be taking or sending his son to church. Thus, the father takes seriously the moral upbringing of his boy. The phrase "chronic angers" in line 9 is open to interpretation. It could mean that sternly scolds his son from time to time or that arguments are commonplace in the household. It seems clear, though, that he is a good father. He accomplishes his Sunday tasks with aching, skin-cracked hands subjected during the week to the fierce cold he endures on the job. The adult speaker regrets now that he never took the time to thank his father for his concern and love. …show more content…
The poem contains no end rhyme; it does contain internal rhyme, in lines 2-6 and 8 &10. The use of short words containing hard consonants are clothes, blueblack, cold, cracked, ached, weekday, banked, thanked, wake, breaking, call, chronic, speaking. These words emphasize the hardness of life for the speaker's father.
The Winter