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"The term triumvirate (from Latin, "of three men") is commonly used to describe a political regime dominated by three powerful individuals" (Wiki).
Blog prompt: Read/work "Those Winter Sundays" 63/57/64/66. What kind of imagery is central to the poem? How does the imagery work to reveal the theme of the poem?
Homework: (a) To turn in: Answer the questions following "To Autumn" 65/53/67/68 -- pay particular attention to #3 (b) Read sections I-VII -- Writing about poetry
In the first stanza there's a lot of tactal imagery. 'cracked hands that ached' is the strongest imagery in this stanza and the reader can almost feel how swollen and calloused his hands are. The 'blueblack' cold is almost tactal, too. It reminds me of walking to school in the mornings in the beginning of december. It's the kind of cold that hurts to breath through your nose and makes your eyes water.
In the second stanza the strongest imagery is auditory. 'the cold splintering, breaking'. It's interesting that Hayden decided to say the cold splintering, breaking instead of the fire wood splintering, breaking. Those are two words that you usually associate with wood, not the cold. My favorite part of this poem is when he says 'the chronic angers of that house'. It's an interesting way to phrase (what I assume to be) an abusive household.
In the third stanza I sense more of organic imagery. It seems like the person in the poem regrets/feels guilty about being indifferent with his father. The first two stanzas show the love of a parent preparing the house and sacrificing his time for his child. However the last line hints that he was rough. The last two lines show the most and made me feel the most (hence the organic imagery). When a person grows up in a certain environment, it in turn makes it hard for them to love and empathize. Perhaps this is what happened with his father and that's why his love is held in an 'austere and lonely office'.
The two possible themes that hit me the hardest in "Those Winter Sundays" were guilt and love. Each time I reread the poem I go back and forth between the two because each time through the author's feelings upon his own father seem to change for me.
I first thought guilt was a theme because Hayden talks about his relationship with his father in a less than loving way, but I also believe that though the author may have resented his father as a child, as an adult he feels guilty for ever doing so because his father worked work to support Hayden, which is the reason why he never got to spend much father-son time with his father. But, like all young children, Hayden was much too young to see that his father did this because he loved him and simply wanted the best for his son, and in turn, had to make sacrifices.
Oh, and something interesting I read about Hayden: he was not actually raised by his birth father.
Moving on. The reader is able to feel Hayden's pain through his effective use of imagery. His word choice (for example, cracked hands and banked fires blaze) really painted a picture of the darkness, pain and loneliness of Hayden's father's life. “I awoke and heard the cold splintering, breaking”. You can actually see as well as hear the father's hands cracking from all they have been through.
Not to get overly personal or whatever, but it did made me think about my relationship with my own father. He is a very intricate man who finds a personal sactuary deep within himself rather than in the comfort of others. Much like Hayden, the first years of my life I resented my father for putting his work over his family, or so it seemed. And to blame him for feeling so angry the first part of my life, as much as we've had our differences throughout the years, would be remarkably ignorant, but I think it is true that we have encountered many of the same obstacles in life with similar attitudes. I think Hayden also came to a similar realization in his life about his father, and thus goes back to and explains his guilt.
"In the blueblack cold" the father awoke; in harder times then the ones his son came to take for granted. He prepared himself in the darkest, bluest and iciest of times. And the author fortifies this picture with the toll that such "labor" requires: "banked fires blaze" within his "cracked hands" from the sacrifices he's given.
And the son? Well this lad has got it easy. Let's contrast: waking to "hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm" is when he "would rise and dress," The sensory imagery of the sons morning is an easier, warmer one than that in which the father initiated his day.
The one "who had driven out the cold"? "No one ever thanked him". The ones who gave us free educations, sanitary water, more than three meals a day to eat, roads on which to travel anywhere, malls in which to consume anything we desire, and liberty.... No one ever thanks them.
The imagery that caught my attention in the first stanza was tactile. In the line about waking up early and putting his clothes on in the blueblack cold, I could feel the cold bitter air stinging my skin and the icy floor beneath my aching feet. I also think it has some organic imagery because when I read the line, "from labor the weekday made," I felt his weariness and frustration of having to venture from his warm bed into the harsh winter outside. It also consisted of visual imagery with adjectives to describe his "cracked hands" and the "blueblack cold" light of the winter morning.
The second stanza had auditory and organic imagery. Auditory because of how the cold air was described as splintering and breaking. I pictured the air so frozen that I could hear it breaking like ice. I also think it had organic imagery because of the line, "chronic angers of the house," which insinuates the internal mood is sour and uninviting.
The last stanza has organic imagery in it because the feeling of Hayden's guilt towards his father is very strong. His love is frozen like that winter morning and he needs to find a way to melt away his indifferences with his father.
As lauren said, the poem is about guilt. And just understanding. I mean the son feels disconnected from his father because he's always working but he's working so that the son can have a good future. Maybe if the dad is always working, his son will have a brighter future that doesn't involve labor that cracked his hands.
In the first stanza, there is definitely a lot of tactal imagery. The "blueblack cold" makes me imagine of like frostbite. Frostbitten toes are blueblack; and the image makes me feel just a little bit more colder. "The cracked hands that ached" is so strong. It's not hurt, or swollen, or rough, it's cracked. And it adds to the coldness of the day. Both lines work together to provide an image of emotional coldness.
And in the 2nd and 3rd stanza, I thought the organic imagery was most important. "Chronic angers" and "speaking indifferently." The imagery paints a stronger picture of the anger and blame the son placed on his father. It's so sad because he spoke indifferently to his father, although he worked so hard for him. It's interesting to think about what age this son might be. When you're a child, you don't understand things your parents do for you; but when you're older, you still may resent them for their actions.
The first section does have a lot of tactile imagery. You can feel the father’s dry, cracked, aching hands after being long exposed to the “blueblack” cold--dark and black, before the sun has even risen. Instantly you revert back to a memory when you were outside battling the frigid winds of winter. The roaring fires I think could be considered auditory, tactile, olfactory, and visual--well I guess that’s nearly all of them! A person can HEAR a fire crackle and pop, FEEL the warmth on their skin, SMELL the smoke billowing from the fireplace, and SEE red flames burning brightly over charcoaled colored logs. Just this little bit of imagery draws us into the writer’s world; we are there and begin to experience not only a story, but vivid details in a reflection concerning the poet’s father (I’m assuming it’s his) .
The second section goes on to create more auditory imagery: “cold splintering, breaking.” These probably are the sounds of the father chopping fresh firewood in the morning. The fear seems to overwhelm the child, which is strong organic imagery. A person can definitely feel fear, and at times it seems to pulsate through the body. I can just see a child slowly waking up in the morning and slipping on a pair of warm clothes, gently tip-toeing down the hall way trying not to make any noise in fear of angering their father -- “chronic angers” filled the house.
Cold definitely is a theme within the poem; and seems to suggest an icy, slow relationship, not warm and loving -- at least this is how the son felt when he was littler. There was a disconnect between them, and the son when looking back on his life, as mentioned before, seems to be feeling a great amount of guilt for feeling this way. He wasn’t fully aware as to why his dad woke up so early. It wasn’t for his own sake. His father was a man who put his own pain aside in order to keep the family comfortable and warm, while working alone in the darkness of morning.
Now, he recognizes the ways in which he spoke to his father. He spoke “indifferently to him, / who had driven out the cold / and polished my good shoes as well.” The son seems to be reflecting on the ungratefulness he expressed towards his father when he was younger. Now that he has matured he realizes that acts of love can be expressed silently, somewhat indirectly, which often times can be very simple, or “austere.” Even something as small as building fires. After journeying into adulthood he appreciates what his father did for his family, and recognizes the loving, selfless acts of kindness. As a child he didn’t understand love could be expressed in this way, therefore feeling like his father didn’t love him.
In reading this poem I have come to the conclusion that there are three main types of imagery that Hayden employs in this poem; they are tactile, kinesthetic, and organic.
When I think of the "blueblack" cold, I think of mornings of recent times when it is bitter cold. The feeling of my car's door handle and anything metal that I touch. It is a unique sensation that has at times been therapeutic, and at other times painful.
Sadly, I can also relate to the achey hands of the father. I must type very poorly, or have early-onset arthritis because my hands just flat out hurt around the clock. That is the best example of kinesthetic imagery -- for myself that is.
The organic imagery (that one is feelings, no?) in this poem is what really jumped out and grabbed my attention. In earlier parts of the 20th century Sunday was a day of rest, yet this father woke early to work. I know my father has had very few Sundays when he has worked, and it is a solemn feeling when he does. It is kind of like something is temporarily missing from my day.
Perhaps my favorite example is line 9. My paternal grandfather was a stern son of a gun. If he told me to do something, I would do it out of the fear of his reaction. I think it is alright to assume we have all experienced ourselves doing some action out of the fear of angering someone if we do not. Fear is a strong feeling, as is anger. It is either some sense of selflessness, or some sense of self preservation that leads us to choose to listen to fear, rather than anger.
The last sentence is another great example of organic imagery. It really unlocked a deeper sense of thought on the subject of love in my own soul. Is "tough love" really what true love is?
Also, I have seen a few of you mention line 6 in this poem. If you read the surrounding lines, you will see that it is not the hands Hayden speaks of, but rather the father's early morning chore of chopping wood to heat the family's home for the day. I get this from the lines that read, "When the rooms were warm, he'd call," and, "...from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze"(4-5/7).
I do not get the sense of guilt a few of you had mentioned. I do not think the son (or daughter. does it ever say?) feels bad about this. Otherwise he would wake with his father to assist him. So much of this poem is written in past tense, and the title hints to this being a reflection of an earlier time in life.
I look at this poem and see a matured adult looking back on life and realizing how love is not always showed through words, but also through actions. The grown child states, "What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?" Austere means strict, or severe. This is where I got the idea of "tough love". Offices does not only mean, room, title of authority, or building, but it can religiously mean acts of service. The lonely offices were domestic tasks like wood-chopping that the father was doing for his wife and children. His love was tough, but his love was shown through action in "lonely offices".
This is a bit off from what most have written, so I hope it is on the right track...
I really enjoyed this poem, mainly because of its great descriptions of a time that wouldn't seem so special at first glance. Like others have said, the first stanza has a great deal of tactile imagery, such as "cracked hands that ached." When I read this line, I felt as though I was looking at the hands of a very old person, with disfigured and swollen joints as well as the slight groaning that comes along with the associated pain. The "blueback cold" even feels tactile, as I can almost feel the bitter cold air blowing across my face, sapping all moisture from the surface of my skin. Additionally, I felt that the juxtaposition of "blueback" with "fire" gave not only a literal representation of the setting, but also a figurative representation of the personality of the father, one that illuminates darkness.
The second stanza, I noticed a great deal of auditory imagery. The strongest example of this is with "cold splintering, breaking." I can just hear how the cold air outside a window would have the whooshing sound and, if strong enough, breaking tree branches. However, I also noticed some visual imagery in this stanza, specifically with "slowly I would rise and dress." Within the context of the poem, I can definitely see the poet waking up and groggily getting up from bed.
The third stanza had quite a lot of organic imagery. I sensed the realization that the narrator felt stemming form all his father had done for him. I get the feeling that the father was a strict man, but also one that was extremely caring. The last line in particular supports this, as the poet states, "What did i know, what did I know." This suggested to me that he was deeply reflecting upon past experiences with his father, acts that were very simple. Previously, the poet was not able to appreciate such love, but at the end of the poem, he can.
The use of imagery in this poem greatly helped me to understand the theme of the poem. I was able to ascertain that the poet didn't understand about simple forms of love that his father had in early life, but later understood them. The poem comes across to me as one of newfound appreciation for the simple things in life, things that usually do not garner any recognition.
The poem's communicative properties derive primarily from imagery that revolves around sacrifice. The father's “cracked hands that ached” (3) are visual imagery that shows the miserable state the father is in. Ordinarily, a person in such a situation would be a slave to inertia. But the father soldiers on. There's also tactile imagery in the “blueblack cold” (2) which also aids in explaining the situation that the father is in. It's obviously not pleasant, yet the father still chops the wood. This first batch establishes that the father is indeed making a sacrifice.
Lauren Deits hypothesized the poem is about guilt, but I disagree. When looking at the words that created the imagery, they're all details presented soberly. I see no emotion in the speaker's final words. As the imagery has a common theme, sacrifice, I instead conclude the poem is related to sacrifice. Given the speaker's general musing toward the end, the poem's theme is is a general “sacrifice often goes unappreciated.”
'blackblue cold' remind me of those winters where it wasn't even fun to play outside because it was dry and cold, the coldness getting threw almost every layer of your jacket. Not to mention there's just not enough light to do anything before parental units call you inside.
'cold splintering, breaking' line brings me back to the feeling of how cold it is. Have you ever woken up in the morning and it's cold, and you can hear the floor boards creak because it's cold? (Or maybe I just lived in a rickety old house) I almost get this feeling of the house warming up and the floor boards making sounds because they were frozen cold before.
'chronic angers' implies to the idea that it wasn't easy to live with his father. The man may have had a short temper, or got angry over the little things in life. You can see the hard labor in hands with the line of 'cracked hands that break'.
As for the theme, I think it was about something of his ungratefulness then verses what he knows now. I think it was how the speaker was looking back and seeing everying differently, almost understanding why it was.
For me, the lines "I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking." invoked the most vivid imagery. They remind me of the noises from a fire, the crackling of wood and sparks. It's interesting that the author used the word "cold" to describe the sounds. I right away thought of the sounds as being from a fire, not from creaking floors or something else. It seemed strange when I first read it to juxtapose cold and fire. After reading it a couple times, this juxtaposition of cold and fire gave me the feeling of being near a campfire, but not close enough to feel the warmth through the crisp air. Another line that goes well with this one is from the first stanza, "the blueblack cold". Together, these lines create the theme that the father, heroicly braves the frigid darkness of the morning to warm the home for everyone else.
Central imagery rests with in the splintered skin of the father/husbands's hands. In the first stanza I thinking snow, freezing, COLDNESS!!! The second stanza carries on the coldness of the poem. "...hear the cold splintering, breaking." When everything is cold, everything you come in contact with has that fresh-out-of-the-bag crunch to it. In the third stanza its funny to see that the daughter or wife gives the guy such an ice queen attitude when he has labored painfully to drive out the cold.
Now if you will excuse me I will now have nightmares of " M-I-L-E-SSSSSSSS........"
That opera was... interesting. Kind of messed up in a way. and i didn't really like the fact that the WHOLE thing was sung... I thought there was going to be regular talking in it like Fidelio.
In the first stanza, I noticed a lot of tactile imagery. I think all of us has woken up one day and got out of bed only to realize that the house is freezing cold. And the line "and put his clothes on in the blueback cold" kind of reminded me of that. I can almost feel the coldness. Also, the cracked hands stuck out to me the most. It reminds me of my dads hands when he was building the fence around our house..
in the second stanza, the imagery that stood out the most to me was auditory. the "cold splintering, breaking." line just kinda punched me in the face. I thought it was extremely well put. Like Natalie said, splintering is usually associated with wood and i think Hayden may have known that and used the word and have it have multiple denotations. because by saying "I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking." is kind of like I'd wake and hear the cold wood breaking..." Maybe its just me. I also dont know if this is one of the imagerys, but this stanza has a lot of things like cold and warm. Tactile maybe?
The last stanza made use of organic imagery more. I get a sense that the person that the poem's perspective is from feels bad and feels almost guilty to being so indifferent to his dad. Maybe because he never really went out WITH his dad to help heat up the house.
Sundays are our one day of the week that we are allowed to rest yet the father does what he does any other day, he works. My father is the same way. He often times works on stuff that I have a tough time seeing value in. He likes the dirt in our yard to be spotless.
The work of our fathers sometimes goes unnoticed or unappreciated because we don't see clearly why they are working so hard all the time. When most of the time they are doing it for us. In the last stanza, the word "indifferently" struck me as being organic imagery because that word reminds me of personal experiences. As Im sure it does with most kids and their parents.
In the second stanza, the author uses "anger of that house," as opposed to "anger of my father." Since the word "house" is included, we all reflect upon our own experiences with angry parents in our own homes. But if the author used "my father," then the situation is exclusive to the narrator.
The ending of the poem carried the most imagery to me: " love's austere and lonely offices." Immediately after reading this, I visualized an empty office, and realized the strong metaphor. "Austere" and "lonely" made this office seem more dissociated and void. At the surface, the father's love is absent, and unappreciated. But the love is strong and truly there: his father's actions are testament.
I thought the theme of "coldness" was essential to the poem. Hayden uses great imagery to make this a strong, poignant poem. "Blueback cold" gives a stronger sense of cold with its tactile and visual nature. Blue is commonly associated with cold, and adjunct with back, which is a really receptive place on the body, makes it much more effective; a vivid and receptive way to describe coldness. "cold splintering, breaking." What I associate with this is eating ice, and how it splinters as it crumbles away. This helped convey the mood as the father vanquished the cold.
I think the most important forms of imagery used in the poem are tactile and organic imagery. These types of imagery are the most prevalent in the poem and help readers step into the shoes of the speaker's father. You can almost feel the cold and pain that the father felt!
The imagery that stood out to me the most was "cracked hands that ached" because it is powerful, full of emotion, and helped me empathize with the father and speaker. This organic imagery is really effective, powerful, and captures the love the father had for his children. It also captures the regretful and guilty tone in the poem and helps reveal the meaning of the poem.
P.S I'm probably going to have nightmeres about the Turning of the Screw! AHHH!
After reading this poem I was left a little depressed. After I went back to start my imagery searching I noticed that mostly every part of this poem has a melancholy way of being described. When I imagined blueblack cold I imagined the early morning where it is pitch black and so intensely cold that their is blue. The father's cracked hands, and house's anger, and the indifferent talk makes me feel even worse for the father who seems to work so hard for his family. I think that this boy is realizing later how easy it could have been to simply love his father. He regrets his anger and has realized how much of a hardworking dad that his father really was.
This poem recognizes a father’s self-sacrificing to bring warmth to the family. To carryout this image, Hayden uses imageries of sound and sight. The action of the father getting up and dressing is sharpened as an image by the use of the interesting adjective "blueblack," which describes a darkness that will soon be contrasted by the image of fire. In an effort to light the fire Hayden introduces the feel of pain as the father’s hands are described as “cracked hands that ached.”
It is a powerful way to conclude the first stanza by making a surprising admission, “No one ever thanked him.” This creates a distance between the son and the father and others. But as the poem went on, the coldness seems to gradually fade away, “cold splintering, breaking.” It is strong and interesting to use “chronic anger” to convey the warmth and comfort of the house, since anger generally derives out the image of flame.
By merely observing the title of the poem, we can begin to realize the central imagery that Robert Hayden creates in this poem. The fundamental image he creates throughout this poem derives from the temperature of his winter morning, the "blueblack cold", that creates sounds of "cold splintering, breaking." Hayden uses the images of cold to paint a meager, bleak, lonely existance in his winter home. To create the strong effect of emotion within the poem that is fundamental to its power, Hayden juxtaposes this idea of cold, with the good-hearted homey feeling of warmth within his home that his father creates in the morning. "when the rooms were warm, he would call," ... " [He] had driven out the cold". Hayden discusses how he regrets not appreciating his father for all of the hardwork he did, representing by the clearing of the bitter cold out of their winter home.
From the title, I got a feeling that the poem's main tone and feeling was going to be cold. Literally and metaphorically. From the first stanza you get the feeling of cold and pain, "put his clothes on in the blueback cold." You also get auditory and tactical imagery wtih "cracked hands that ached from labor." I think that in the second stanza I think from just listening to the poem aloud, you can just hear the "cold splintering, breaking" in the poem. I think that the main imagery used was auditory. In the third stanza, I think its pretty clear that organic imagery was the primary one used. It seems as if he feels regrets the things he has done and you can sense more emotion in this last stanza. "What did i know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices," he seems like he has changed his perspective on how he felt before and started to realized what he didn't see.
I looked up the word office and at the 13th definition i found one most fitting. It means "a service or task to be performed; assignment; chore." Most of the things imagery I picked up on was tactal or visual. The imagery focuses on how hard the father works, especially making points about how he has to be cold and his son sleeps through the cold. The "blueblack cold" to me could refer to the cold at dawn when the sky is a blue black, or how the cold makes your skin pale, revealing the blues and black of the week's bruises. The father's "cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather" show how hard he works. Saying the he could "hear the cold splintering, breaking" shows how much he truly thinks his dad is a hero but doesn't realize it yet. The father is destroying cold itself and has "driven" it out with the fires he makes on sunday mornings by the time he is dressed. The way he dresses also caught my attention. The speaker, the son, gets to "slowly...rise and dress" while the father "put his clothes on in the blueblack." Putting your clothes and and getting dressed indicate two different speeds of doing the same action. The speaker gets to dress slowly because its not cold while the father just puts on clothes quickly--one of the sacrifices he makes for love. The theme of the poem is not seeing or realizing how many things people, especially parents, do 'behind the scenes' for love.
Robert Hayden uses all types of imagery to describe his father's sacrifices and selflessness. Although I believe that auditory, tactile, and the other types of imagery were important, I think that the most important of those was Hayden's use of organic imagery.
This poem is a reflection of the speaker's childhood and relationship with his father. The speaker realizes how ignorant he had been to his father's sacrifices, and Hayden manipulates organic imagery beautifully to convey an emotional struggle within the reader. In the first stanza, Hayden uses other types of imagery like tactile to lead the reader to organic imagery. The father's cracked hands may be a tactile image because of its roughness, but it signifies the pain the father endures. The last line of the stanza stood out the most to me in the entire poem. "No one ever thanked him." I think the word "ever" puts an even greater emphasis on the fact that his acts were unappreciated and disregarded. Organic imagery is used in this sentence, because it gives the reader the sense of loneliness that the father most likely felt. His sacrifices were unacknowledged, and although his father was one who did not need to be thanked, everyone knows the feeling of accomplishing something for someone and not even getting a nod of thanks, even if it is a daily chore.
The second stanza, as others have pointed out, employs strong auditory imagery with the "cold splintering, breaking." The last line of the stanza talks about the fear of the chronic angers that fill the house. Although I do not fully understand this line (possibly the father's anger? but I didn't take the father to be an angry figure)Hayden uses organic imagery once more to convey the sense of fear. In the line previous, he describes the speaker as rising slowly, as if anxious and reluctant to get up.
The last stanza indicates that the speaker is looking back at his relationship with his father. I don't believe that this poem is about guilt. The speaker, by ending the poem with a rhetorical question, seems to come to his senses and accepts the fact that he simply did not know any better. He treated his father indifferently, but everyone remembers as kids, they didn't know any better. I remember I was a brat when I was a kid, and I never gave a second thought to what my parents had to sacrifice or how hard they had to work in order to fulfill my selfish wants. This theme also evokes an internal sensation everyone is familiar with; this lack of appreciation because of the lack of knowledge and maturity as children.
I agree with Lauren about the theme. You can feel the guilt in line 5 when Hayden states that "no one ever thanked him," which includes Hayden as well. I sense this guilty feeling just from the first line. The word "too" implies that not only does he get up early every day for work, but on the weekends also and in the "blueblack cold." The imagery that is strongest in stanza one appeared to be tactile and visual. Like others said you can almost feel the "cracked hands" and the "fires blaze."
Auditory imagery clearly seems to be the strongest in the second stanza. Words such as "splintering," "breaking," "call," "rise," "slowly," "chronic," and angers" imply this. In this stanza there seems to be something hidden. He never tells us anything more about "the chronic angers" or his fear of them. It's as if he sees the hard work he does for their household and has a strong love for him somewhere, but holds a grudge for some reason.
Agreeing with others, I believe the strongest imagery in the last stanza is organic. Emotions are felt stronger throughout this stanza than the other two. Hayden's true feelings kind of peak out. Although Hayden only speaks of his father doing labor work for him and his family, it is clear that that isn't just what he is speaking of.
His love for his father is cold. But it exists.
This poem is great. I can connect to it in certain ways.
Lots of tactile imagery, of course one of the most important and poignant ones is the 'blueback cold' the "banked fires" from "cracked hands" is wonderful brcause it really shows how this father's hands are breaking and exploding and not just hurting from his hard work.
This poem also gives me many images of the hard working father in contrast to the relatively well off son who has a nice morning. Hayden's diction in the poetry especially the words he uses to create imagery. The poem as a whole has the effect of creating an ambience for you, which is something poems seem to do, rather than narrating a story I think they either give a message create a very detailed ambience or do both.
I thought both assignments were on "to Autumn" so I sat here re-reading it three times, wondering where everyone was getting these weird interpretations..
... I got a sense of exhaustion and loneliness when reading the first stanza. It makes me think of waking up in the morning for school when it's just as dark outside as it was when you went to bed. You put your bare feet on hardwood floor and it's freezing because the heater is off, and you feel like you just put your head on your pillow a few minutes ago. The father got up early and put his clothes on in the "blueblack cold" (tactile) and made a fire "with cracked hands." It kind of seems like the speaker personifies the hands to show just how alone the father was and then it ends with "No one ever thanked him." This stanza gave me a greater sense of organic imagery, but obviously tactile, too.
Then it moves on to auditory. You hear the cold splintering, breaking. The father calling. The child slowly getting out of bed, probably trying to remain as silent as possible. I imagine he or she is still in the darkness. For some reason the phrase "chronic anger" leads me to imagine abuse, which instills a sense of fear inside of me, just reading that line.It sounds like his father called him from outside of his door and he has to get dressed and confront what he fears, his own father. Another example of auditory imagery comes in the line, "Speaking indifferently to him."
"Polished my good shoes as well"- auditory, visual, olfactory. I imagine the father kneeling down to his child's feet and polishing his shoes for him as the child just watches with no great sense of thankfulness. Then the line, "What did I know, what did I know" shows you that these feelings were all prior to his relationship with his father. I believe these are all things that led to his realization of "love's austere" and "lonely offices."
For me, the "blueblack cold" and had the strongest imagery. I could visualize the darkness of dawn, the blue black hue the sky takes before the sun rises. I could also feel the cold of the winter mornings, The tactile imagery was the imagery i could relate to the most. When i read "blueblack" i remember the kind of cold that makes it feel as if pins and needles were being driven into your skin. The imagery as a whole reminded me of getting up for school during winter while it is still dark, and walking to the bus stop half asleep in the bitter cold. Another interesting imagery, as others have pointed out is "the cold splintering, breaking". This line is interesting because i usually do not associate cold with splintering, breaking. However when i read this line i could hear the trees cracking and splintering due to the extreme cold.
In the first section, I sense a lot of tactile imagery when the father's hands are described as cracked. This and the "blueblack" description can also be interpreted as visual imagery. The "splintering, breaking" of the cold is beautiful tactile and organic imagery. It generates the feeling of pain that one experiences when hands are defrosting. The stingy sensation.
I think overall, like several of you have mentioned, the use of imagery lends itself to a powerful mental image and interaction with the poem. As readers, we plunge into the unknown, where it is cold, dangerous, and any mistake can be fragile. "fearing the chronic angers of that house" is reflective of the emotions of the reader as well. The themes of this poem which revolve around suffering and fear depend heavily on the environment created through the imagery.
Just as a connection, I'm really impressed with how Hayden created this environment with increased use of tactile and organic imagery rather than the typical color-drainage techniques used by some other poets/authors. I feel stripped of polish/shine/gloss rather than simply visualizing a depressing environment.
I'm sorry for posting late. I procrastinated and was too tired after the opera (which was really strange...) =/
This poem sounds really familiar to me, for some reason. I think I read it in middle school.
Anyway, tactile, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic imagery were all important in enhancing the theme of this poem. The boy never recognized that although his father truly loved him, he was very cold in how he showed his love. Now looking back, the boy feels remorse that he only saw the "chronic angers" and possibly violent behavior of his father, but never saw the love. He didn't appreciate what his father did for him, which left his father "lonely" too. He learned that love can be expressed in different ways, through action rather than actual spoken words.
For me, the most powerful line in Stanza 1 was "No one ever thanked him." It embodies their cold, indifferent, and lonely attitudes at home, both of the father and the son. The first stanza had a lot of visual imagery, like "blueblack cold". I could picture waking up before dawn, when the sky is still black and it's really cold. The "blueblack" also made me think of the father's bruises from his hard labor. The "cracked hands that ached" was also really powerful because it was easy to picture and feel someone's hands like that, especially when it's so cold outside.
In the second stanza, the auditory image of "cold splintering, breaking" helped us get into the poem, and made it seem more real. The last line of this stanza also begins the organic imagery that is repeated in the third stanza.
The last two lines of the third stanza really stood out to me, because I was able to sense the raw emotion, nostalgia, and guilt behind it.
I think what's really interesting about the whole poem is that there's a lot of kinesthetic imagery in each stanza. It adds meat to the poem's theme and moves the poem along. There is a lot of motion going on. The father wakes up early, starts a fire, calls his son, "drives out the cold", and polishes his son's shoes; the boy hears the "cold", gets up, dresses, and speaks offhandedly with his father. There's a lot of action for father and son, and when you compare what they do, it's obvious that the father does much more for the son and on a daily basis. He wakes up early even on a supposedly lazy Sunday to keep the house warm -- this is real love, which the boy takes a long time to recognize.
When I read this poem, I felt that organic imagery overrode the other types. His "cracked hands that ached from labor... was the first line that created the organic imagery. I could feel his hands, and feel my hands, and the enduring pain that they go through day in and day out. I think of the times that my hands "ache" from playing piano, and "cracked" after playing on the playground in elementary school. The poem progresses, and you can feel the warmness of the house, and the warm feeling you get in your bed when the poem says "When the rooms were warm." It seems that although the cold air was piercing the sky, there was a sense of comfort and easiness within the house, a sense of warmth.
The imagery creates the poem, and makes it as strong as it is. It's not very long, so the authors main device is to capture the feelings and emotions of the readers, which is exactly what the imagery creates.
29 comments:
In the first stanza there's a lot of tactal imagery. 'cracked hands that ached' is the strongest imagery in this stanza and the reader can almost feel how swollen and calloused his hands are. The 'blueblack' cold is almost tactal, too. It reminds me of walking to school in the mornings in the beginning of december. It's the kind of cold that hurts to breath through your nose and makes your eyes water.
In the second stanza the strongest imagery is auditory. 'the cold splintering, breaking'. It's interesting that Hayden decided to say the cold splintering, breaking instead of the fire wood splintering, breaking. Those are two words that you usually associate with wood, not the cold.
My favorite part of this poem is when he says 'the chronic angers of that house'. It's an interesting way to phrase (what I assume to be) an abusive household.
In the third stanza I sense more of organic imagery. It seems like the person in the poem regrets/feels guilty about being indifferent with his father. The first two stanzas show the love of a parent preparing the house and sacrificing his time for his child. However the last line hints that he was rough. The last two lines show the most and made me feel the most (hence the organic imagery). When a person grows up in a certain environment, it in turn makes it hard for them to love and empathize. Perhaps this is what happened with his father and that's why his love is held in an 'austere and lonely office'.
The two possible themes that hit me the hardest in "Those Winter Sundays" were guilt and love. Each time I reread the poem I go back and forth between the two because each time through the author's feelings upon his own father seem to change for me.
I first thought guilt was a theme because Hayden talks about his relationship with his father in a less than loving way, but I also believe that though the author may have resented his father as a child, as an adult he feels guilty for ever doing so because his father worked work to support Hayden, which is the reason why he never got to spend much father-son time with his father. But, like all young children, Hayden was much too young to see that his father did this because he loved him and simply wanted the best for his son, and in turn, had to make sacrifices.
Oh, and something interesting I read about Hayden: he was not actually raised by his birth father.
Moving on. The reader is able to feel Hayden's pain through his effective use of imagery. His word choice (for example, cracked hands and banked fires blaze) really painted a picture of the darkness, pain and loneliness of Hayden's father's life. “I awoke and heard the cold splintering, breaking”. You can actually see as well as hear the father's hands cracking from all they have been through.
Not to get overly personal or whatever, but it did made me think about my relationship with my own father. He is a very intricate man who finds a personal sactuary deep within himself rather than in the comfort of others. Much like Hayden, the first years of my life I resented my father for putting his work over his family, or so it seemed. And to blame him for feeling so angry the first part of my life, as much as we've had our differences throughout the years, would be remarkably ignorant, but I think it is true that we have encountered many of the same obstacles in life with similar attitudes. I think Hayden also came to a similar realization in his life about his father, and thus goes back to and explains his guilt.
"In the blueblack cold" the father awoke; in harder times then the ones his son came to take for granted. He prepared himself in the darkest, bluest and iciest of times. And the author fortifies this picture with the toll that such "labor" requires: "banked fires blaze" within his "cracked hands" from the sacrifices he's given.
And the son? Well this lad has got it easy. Let's contrast: waking to "hear the cold splintering, breaking. When the rooms were warm" is when he "would rise and dress,"
The sensory imagery of the sons morning is an easier, warmer one than that in which the father initiated his day.
The one "who had driven out the cold"? "No one ever thanked him". The ones who gave us free educations, sanitary water, more than three meals a day to eat, roads on which to travel anywhere, malls in which to consume anything we desire, and liberty.... No one ever thanks them.
The imagery that caught my attention in the first stanza was tactile. In the line about waking up early and putting his clothes on in the blueblack cold, I could feel the cold bitter air stinging my skin and the icy floor beneath my aching feet. I also think it has some organic imagery because when I read the line, "from labor the weekday made," I felt his weariness and frustration of having to venture from his warm bed into the harsh winter outside. It also consisted of visual imagery with adjectives to describe his "cracked hands" and the "blueblack cold" light of the winter morning.
The second stanza had auditory and organic imagery. Auditory because of how the cold air was described as splintering and breaking. I pictured the air so frozen that I could hear it breaking like ice. I also think it had organic imagery because of the line, "chronic angers of the house," which insinuates the internal mood is sour and uninviting.
The last stanza has organic imagery in it because the feeling of Hayden's guilt towards his father is very strong. His love is frozen like that winter morning and he needs to find a way to melt away his indifferences with his father.
As lauren said, the poem is about guilt. And just understanding. I mean the son feels disconnected from his father because he's always working but he's working so that the son can have a good future. Maybe if the dad is always working, his son will have a brighter future that doesn't involve labor that cracked his hands.
In the first stanza, there is definitely a lot of tactal imagery. The "blueblack cold" makes me imagine of like frostbite. Frostbitten toes are blueblack; and the image makes me feel just a little bit more colder. "The cracked hands that ached" is so strong. It's not hurt, or swollen, or rough, it's cracked. And it adds to the coldness of the day. Both lines work together to provide an image of emotional coldness.
And in the 2nd and 3rd stanza, I thought the organic imagery was most important. "Chronic angers" and "speaking indifferently." The imagery paints a stronger picture of the anger and blame the son placed on his father. It's so sad because he spoke indifferently to his father, although he worked so hard for him. It's interesting to think about what age this son might be. When you're a child, you don't understand things your parents do for you; but when you're older, you still may resent them for their actions.
The first section does have a lot of tactile imagery. You can feel the father’s dry, cracked, aching hands after being long exposed to the “blueblack” cold--dark and black, before the sun has even risen. Instantly you revert back to a memory when you were outside battling the frigid winds of winter. The roaring fires I think could be considered auditory, tactile, olfactory, and visual--well I guess that’s nearly all of them! A person can HEAR a fire crackle and pop, FEEL the warmth on their skin, SMELL the smoke billowing from the fireplace, and SEE red flames burning brightly over charcoaled colored logs. Just this little bit of imagery draws us into the writer’s world; we are there and begin to experience not only a story, but vivid details in a reflection concerning the poet’s father (I’m assuming it’s his) .
The second section goes on to create more auditory imagery: “cold splintering, breaking.” These probably are the sounds of the father chopping fresh firewood in the morning. The fear seems to overwhelm the child, which is strong organic imagery. A person can definitely feel fear, and at times it seems to pulsate through the body. I can just see a child slowly waking up in the morning and slipping on a pair of warm clothes, gently tip-toeing down the hall way trying not to make any noise in fear of angering their father -- “chronic angers” filled the house.
Cold definitely is a theme within the poem; and seems to suggest an icy, slow relationship, not warm and loving -- at least this is how the son felt when he was littler. There was a disconnect between them, and the son when looking back on his life, as mentioned before, seems to be feeling a great amount of guilt for feeling this way. He wasn’t fully aware as to why his dad woke up so early. It wasn’t for his own sake. His father was a man who put his own pain aside in order to keep the family comfortable and warm, while working alone in the darkness of morning.
Now, he recognizes the ways in which he spoke to his father. He spoke “indifferently to him, / who had driven out the cold / and polished my good shoes as well.” The son seems to be reflecting on the ungratefulness he expressed towards his father when he was younger. Now that he has matured he realizes that acts of love can be expressed silently, somewhat indirectly, which often times can be very simple, or “austere.” Even something as small as building fires. After journeying into adulthood he appreciates what his father did for his family, and recognizes the loving, selfless acts of kindness. As a child he didn’t understand love could be expressed in this way, therefore feeling like his father didn’t love him.
"What did I know, What did I know..."
His views changed.
In reading this poem I have come to the conclusion that there are three main types of imagery that Hayden employs in this poem; they are tactile, kinesthetic, and organic.
When I think of the "blueblack" cold, I think of mornings of recent times when it is bitter cold. The feeling of my car's door handle and anything metal that I touch. It is a unique sensation that has at times been therapeutic, and at other times painful.
Sadly, I can also relate to the achey hands of the father. I must type very poorly, or have early-onset arthritis because my hands just flat out hurt around the clock. That is the best example of kinesthetic imagery -- for myself that is.
The organic imagery (that one is feelings, no?) in this poem is what really jumped out and grabbed my attention. In earlier parts of the 20th century Sunday was a day of rest, yet this father woke early to work. I know my father has had very few Sundays when he has worked, and it is a solemn feeling when he does. It is kind of like something is temporarily missing from my day.
Perhaps my favorite example is line 9. My paternal grandfather was a stern son of a gun. If he told me to do something, I would do it out of the fear of his reaction. I think it is alright to assume we have all experienced ourselves doing some action out of the fear of angering someone if we do not. Fear is a strong feeling, as is anger. It is either some sense of selflessness, or some sense of self preservation that leads us to choose to listen to fear, rather than anger.
The last sentence is another great example of organic imagery. It really unlocked a deeper sense of thought on the subject of love in my own soul. Is "tough love" really what true love is?
Also, I have seen a few of you mention line 6 in this poem. If you read the surrounding lines, you will see that it is not the hands Hayden speaks of, but rather the father's early morning chore of chopping wood to heat the family's home for the day. I get this from the lines that read, "When the rooms were warm, he'd call," and, "...from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze"(4-5/7).
I do not get the sense of guilt a few of you had mentioned. I do not think the son (or daughter. does it ever say?) feels bad about this. Otherwise he would wake with his father to assist him. So much of this poem is written in past tense, and the title hints to this being a reflection of an earlier time in life.
I look at this poem and see a matured adult looking back on life and realizing how love is not always showed through words, but also through actions. The grown child states, "What did I know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?" Austere means strict, or severe. This is where I got the idea of "tough love". Offices does not only mean, room, title of authority, or building, but it can religiously mean acts of service. The lonely offices were domestic tasks like wood-chopping that the father was doing for his wife and children. His love was tough, but his love was shown through action in "lonely offices".
This is a bit off from what most have written, so I hope it is on the right track...
I liked this poem. A lot.
I really enjoyed this poem, mainly because of its great descriptions of a time that wouldn't seem so special at first glance. Like others have said, the first stanza has a great deal of tactile imagery, such as "cracked hands that ached." When I read this line, I felt as though I was looking at the hands of a very old person, with disfigured and swollen joints as well as the slight groaning that comes along with the associated pain. The "blueback cold" even feels tactile, as I can almost feel the bitter cold air blowing across my face, sapping all moisture from the surface of my skin. Additionally, I felt that the juxtaposition of "blueback" with "fire" gave not only a literal representation of the setting, but also a figurative representation of the personality of the father, one that illuminates darkness.
The second stanza, I noticed a great deal of auditory imagery. The strongest example of this is with "cold splintering, breaking." I can just hear how the cold air outside a window would have the whooshing sound and, if strong enough, breaking tree branches. However, I also noticed some visual imagery in this stanza, specifically with "slowly I would rise and dress." Within the context of the poem, I can definitely see the poet waking up and groggily getting up from bed.
The third stanza had quite a lot of organic imagery. I sensed the realization that the narrator felt stemming form all his father had done for him. I get the feeling that the father was a strict man, but also one that was extremely caring. The last line in particular supports this, as the poet states, "What did i know, what did I know." This suggested to me that he was deeply reflecting upon past experiences with his father, acts that were very simple. Previously, the poet was not able to appreciate such love, but at the end of the poem, he can.
The use of imagery in this poem greatly helped me to understand the theme of the poem. I was able to ascertain that the poet didn't understand about simple forms of love that his father had in early life, but later understood them. The poem comes across to me as one of newfound appreciation for the simple things in life, things that usually do not garner any recognition.
The poem's communicative properties derive primarily from imagery that revolves around sacrifice. The father's “cracked hands that ached” (3) are visual imagery that shows the miserable state the father is in. Ordinarily, a person in such a situation would be a slave to inertia. But the father soldiers on. There's also tactile imagery in the “blueblack cold” (2) which also aids in explaining the situation that the father is in. It's obviously not pleasant, yet the father still chops the wood. This first batch establishes that the father is indeed making a sacrifice.
Lauren Deits hypothesized the poem is about guilt, but I disagree. When looking at the words that created the imagery, they're all details presented soberly. I see no emotion in the speaker's final words. As the imagery has a common theme, sacrifice, I instead conclude the poem is related to sacrifice. Given the speaker's general musing toward the end, the poem's theme is is a general “sacrifice often goes unappreciated.”
'blackblue cold' remind me of those winters where it wasn't even fun to play outside because it was dry and cold, the coldness getting threw almost every layer of your jacket. Not to mention there's just not enough light to do anything before parental units call you inside.
'cold splintering, breaking' line brings me back to the feeling of how cold it is. Have you ever woken up in the morning and it's cold, and you can hear the floor boards creak because it's cold? (Or maybe I just lived in a rickety old house) I almost get this feeling of the house warming up and the floor boards making sounds because they were frozen cold before.
'chronic angers' implies to the idea that it wasn't easy to live with his father. The man may have had a short temper, or got angry over the little things in life. You can see the hard labor in hands with the line of 'cracked hands that break'.
As for the theme, I think it was about something of his ungratefulness then verses what he knows now. I think it was how the speaker was looking back and seeing everying differently, almost understanding why it was.
For me, the lines "I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking." invoked the most vivid imagery. They remind me of the noises from a fire, the crackling of wood and sparks. It's interesting that the author used the word "cold" to describe the sounds. I right away thought of the sounds as being from a fire, not from creaking floors or something else. It seemed strange when I first read it to juxtapose cold and fire. After reading it a couple times, this juxtaposition of cold and fire gave me the feeling of being near a campfire, but not close enough to feel the warmth through the crisp air.
Another line that goes well with this one is from the first stanza, "the blueblack cold". Together, these lines create the theme that the father, heroicly braves the frigid darkness of the morning to warm the home for everyone else.
Central imagery rests with in the splintered skin of the father/husbands's hands. In the first stanza I thinking snow, freezing, COLDNESS!!! The second stanza carries on the coldness of the poem. "...hear the cold splintering, breaking." When everything is cold, everything you come in contact with has that fresh-out-of-the-bag crunch to it.
In the third stanza its funny to see that the daughter or wife gives the guy such an ice queen attitude when he has labored painfully to drive out the cold.
Now if you will excuse me I will now have nightmares of " M-I-L-E-SSSSSSSS........"
That opera was... interesting. Kind of messed up in a way. and i didn't really like the fact that the WHOLE thing was sung... I thought there was going to be regular talking in it like Fidelio.
In the first stanza, I noticed a lot of tactile imagery. I think all of us has woken up one day and got out of bed only to realize that the house is freezing cold. And the line "and put his clothes on in the blueback cold" kind of reminded me of that. I can almost feel the coldness. Also, the cracked hands stuck out to me the most. It reminds me of my dads hands when he was building the fence around our house..
in the second stanza, the imagery that stood out the most to me was auditory. the "cold splintering, breaking." line just kinda punched me in the face. I thought it was extremely well put. Like Natalie said, splintering is usually associated with wood and i think Hayden may have known that and used the word and have it have multiple denotations. because by saying "I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking." is kind of like I'd wake and hear the cold wood breaking..." Maybe its just me. I also dont know if this is one of the imagerys, but this stanza has a lot of things like cold and warm. Tactile maybe?
The last stanza made use of organic imagery more. I get a sense that the person that the poem's perspective is from feels bad and feels almost guilty to being so indifferent to his dad. Maybe because he never really went out WITH his dad to help heat up the house.
Sundays are our one day of the week that we are allowed to rest yet the father does what he does any other day, he works. My father is the same way. He often times works on stuff that I have a tough time seeing value in. He likes the dirt in our yard to be spotless.
The work of our fathers sometimes goes unnoticed or unappreciated because we don't see clearly why they are working so hard all the time. When most of the time they are doing it for us. In the last stanza, the word "indifferently" struck me as being organic imagery because that word reminds me of personal experiences. As Im sure it does with most kids and their parents.
In the second stanza, the author uses "anger of that house," as opposed to "anger of my father." Since the word "house" is included, we all reflect upon our own experiences with angry parents in our own homes. But if the author used "my father," then the situation is exclusive to the narrator.
The ending of the poem carried the most imagery to me: " love's austere and lonely offices."
Immediately after reading this, I visualized an empty office, and realized the strong metaphor. "Austere" and "lonely" made this office seem more dissociated and void. At the surface, the father's love is absent, and unappreciated. But the love is strong and truly there: his father's actions are testament.
I thought the theme of "coldness" was essential to the poem. Hayden uses great imagery to make this a strong, poignant poem. "Blueback cold" gives a stronger sense of cold with its tactile and visual nature. Blue is commonly associated with cold, and adjunct with back, which is a really receptive place on the body, makes it much more effective; a vivid and receptive way to describe coldness.
"cold splintering, breaking."
What I associate with this is eating ice, and how it splinters as it crumbles away. This helped convey the mood as the father vanquished the cold.
I think the most important forms of imagery used in the poem are tactile and organic imagery. These types of imagery are the most prevalent in the poem and help readers step into the shoes of the speaker's father. You can almost feel the cold and pain that the father felt!
The imagery that stood out to me the most was "cracked hands that ached" because it is powerful, full of emotion, and helped me empathize with the father and speaker. This organic imagery is really effective, powerful, and captures the love the father had for his children. It also captures the regretful and guilty tone in the poem and helps reveal the meaning of the poem.
P.S
I'm probably going to have nightmeres about the Turning of the Screw! AHHH!
After reading this poem I was left a little depressed. After I went back to start my imagery searching I noticed that mostly every part of this poem has a melancholy way of being described.
When I imagined blueblack cold I imagined the early morning where it is pitch black and so intensely cold that their is blue. The father's cracked hands, and house's anger, and the indifferent talk makes me feel even worse for the father who seems to work so hard for his family. I think that this boy is realizing later how easy it could have been to simply love his father. He regrets his anger and has realized how much of a hardworking dad that his father really was.
This poem recognizes a father’s self-sacrificing to bring warmth to the family. To carryout this image, Hayden uses imageries of sound and sight. The action of the father getting up and dressing is sharpened as an image by the use of the interesting adjective "blueblack," which describes a darkness that will soon be contrasted by the image of fire. In an effort to light the fire Hayden introduces the feel of pain as the father’s hands are described as “cracked hands that ached.”
It is a powerful way to conclude the first stanza by making a surprising admission, “No one ever thanked him.” This creates a distance between the son and the father and others. But as the poem went on, the coldness seems to gradually fade away, “cold splintering, breaking.” It is strong and interesting to use “chronic anger” to convey the warmth and comfort of the house, since anger generally derives out the image of flame.
By merely observing the title of the poem, we can begin to realize the central imagery that Robert Hayden creates in this poem. The fundamental image he creates throughout this poem derives from the temperature of his winter morning, the "blueblack cold", that creates sounds of "cold splintering, breaking." Hayden uses the images of cold to paint a meager, bleak, lonely existance in his winter home. To create the strong effect of emotion within the poem that is fundamental to its power, Hayden juxtaposes this idea of cold, with the good-hearted homey feeling of warmth within his home that his father creates in the morning. "when the rooms were warm, he would call," ... " [He] had driven out the cold". Hayden discusses how he regrets not appreciating his father for all of the hardwork he did, representing by the clearing of the bitter cold out of their winter home.
From the title, I got a feeling that the poem's main tone and feeling was going to be cold. Literally and metaphorically.
From the first stanza you get the feeling of cold and pain, "put his clothes on in the blueback cold." You also get auditory and tactical imagery wtih "cracked hands that ached from labor."
I think that in the second stanza I think from just listening to the poem aloud, you can just hear the "cold splintering, breaking" in the poem. I think that the main imagery used was auditory.
In the third stanza, I think its pretty clear that organic imagery was the primary one used. It seems as if he feels regrets the things he has done and you can sense more emotion in this last stanza. "What did i know, what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices," he seems like he has changed his perspective on how he felt before and started to realized what he didn't see.
I looked up the word office and at the 13th definition i found one most fitting. It means "a service or task to be performed; assignment; chore."
Most of the things imagery I picked up on was tactal or visual. The imagery focuses on how hard the father works, especially making points about how he has to be cold and his son sleeps through the cold. The "blueblack cold" to me could refer to the cold at dawn when the sky is a blue black, or how the cold makes your skin pale, revealing the blues and black of the week's bruises. The father's "cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather" show how hard he works. Saying the he could "hear the cold splintering, breaking" shows how much he truly thinks his dad is a hero but doesn't realize it yet. The father is destroying cold itself and has "driven" it out with the fires he makes on sunday mornings by the time he is dressed. The way he dresses also caught my attention. The speaker, the son, gets to "slowly...rise and dress" while the father "put his clothes on in the blueblack." Putting your clothes and and getting dressed indicate two different speeds of doing the same action. The speaker gets to dress slowly because its not cold while the father just puts on clothes quickly--one of the sacrifices he makes for love. The theme of the poem is not seeing or realizing how many things people, especially parents, do 'behind the scenes' for love.
Robert Hayden uses all types of imagery to describe his father's sacrifices and selflessness. Although I believe that auditory, tactile, and the other types of imagery were important, I think that the most important of those was Hayden's use of organic imagery.
This poem is a reflection of the speaker's childhood and relationship with his father. The speaker realizes how ignorant he had been to his father's sacrifices, and Hayden manipulates organic imagery beautifully to convey an emotional struggle within the reader. In the first stanza, Hayden uses other types of imagery like tactile to lead the reader to organic imagery. The father's cracked hands may be a tactile image because of its roughness, but it signifies the pain the father endures. The last line of the stanza stood out the most to me in the entire poem. "No one ever thanked him." I think the word "ever" puts an even greater emphasis on the fact that his acts were unappreciated and disregarded. Organic imagery is used in this sentence, because it gives the reader the sense of loneliness that the father most likely felt. His sacrifices were unacknowledged, and although his father was one who did not need to be thanked, everyone knows the feeling of accomplishing something for someone and not even getting a nod of thanks, even if it is a daily chore.
The second stanza, as others have pointed out, employs strong auditory imagery with the "cold splintering, breaking." The last line of the stanza talks about the fear of the chronic angers that fill the house. Although I do not fully understand this line (possibly the father's anger? but I didn't take the father to be an angry figure)Hayden uses organic imagery once more to convey the sense of fear. In the line previous, he describes the speaker as rising slowly, as if anxious and reluctant to get up.
The last stanza indicates that the speaker is looking back at his relationship with his father. I don't believe that this poem is about guilt. The speaker, by ending the poem with a rhetorical question, seems to come to his senses and accepts the fact that he simply did not know any better. He treated his father indifferently, but everyone remembers as kids, they didn't know any better. I remember I was a brat when I was a kid, and I never gave a second thought to what my parents had to sacrifice or how hard they had to work in order to fulfill my selfish wants. This theme also evokes an internal sensation everyone is familiar with; this lack of appreciation because of the lack of knowledge and maturity as children.
I loved this poem!
I agree with Lauren about the theme. You can feel the guilt in line 5 when Hayden states that "no one ever thanked him," which includes Hayden as well. I sense this guilty feeling just from the first line. The word "too" implies that not only does he get up early every day for work, but on the weekends also and in the "blueblack cold." The imagery that is strongest in stanza one appeared to be tactile and visual. Like others said you can almost feel the "cracked hands" and the "fires blaze."
Auditory imagery clearly seems to be the strongest in the second stanza. Words such as "splintering," "breaking," "call," "rise," "slowly," "chronic," and angers" imply this. In this stanza there seems to be something hidden. He never tells us anything more about "the chronic angers" or his fear of them. It's as if he sees the hard work he does for their household and has a strong love for him somewhere, but holds a grudge for some reason.
Agreeing with others, I believe the strongest imagery in the last stanza is organic. Emotions are felt stronger throughout this stanza than the other two. Hayden's true feelings kind of peak out. Although Hayden only speaks of his father doing labor work for him and his family, it is clear that that isn't just what he is speaking of.
His love for his father is cold. But it exists.
This poem is great. I can connect to it in certain ways.
Lots of tactile imagery, of course one of the most important and poignant ones is the 'blueback cold' the "banked fires" from "cracked hands" is wonderful brcause it really shows how this father's hands are breaking and exploding and not just hurting from his hard work.
This poem also gives me many images of the hard working father in contrast to the relatively well off son who has a nice morning. Hayden's diction in the poetry especially the words he uses to create imagery. The poem as a whole has the effect of creating an ambience for you, which is something poems seem to do, rather than narrating a story I think they either give a message create a very detailed ambience or do both.
I thought both assignments were on "to Autumn" so I sat here re-reading it three times, wondering where everyone was getting these weird interpretations..
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I got a sense of exhaustion and loneliness when reading the first stanza. It makes me think of waking up in the morning for school when it's just as dark outside as it was when you went to bed. You put your bare feet on hardwood floor and it's freezing because the heater is off, and you feel like you just put your head on your pillow a few minutes ago. The father got up early and put his clothes on in the "blueblack cold" (tactile) and made a fire "with cracked hands." It kind of seems like the speaker personifies the hands to show just how alone the father was and then it ends with "No one ever thanked him." This stanza gave me a greater sense of organic imagery, but obviously tactile, too.
Then it moves on to auditory. You hear the cold splintering, breaking. The father calling. The child slowly getting out of bed, probably trying to remain as silent as possible. I imagine he or she is still in the darkness. For some reason the phrase "chronic anger" leads me to imagine abuse, which instills a sense of fear inside of me, just reading that line.It sounds like his father called him from outside of his door and he has to get dressed and confront what he fears, his own father. Another example of auditory imagery comes in the line, "Speaking indifferently to him."
"Polished my good shoes as well"- auditory, visual, olfactory. I imagine the father kneeling down to his child's feet and polishing his shoes for him as the child just watches with no great sense of thankfulness. Then the line, "What did I know, what did I know" shows you that these feelings were all prior to his relationship with his father. I believe these are all things that led to his realization of "love's austere" and "lonely offices."
For me, the "blueblack cold" and had the strongest imagery. I could visualize the darkness of dawn, the blue black hue the sky takes before the sun rises. I could also feel the cold of the winter mornings, The tactile imagery was the imagery i could relate to the most. When i read "blueblack" i remember the kind of cold that makes it feel as if pins and needles were being driven into your skin. The imagery as a whole reminded me of getting up for school during winter while it is still dark, and walking to the bus stop half asleep in the bitter cold.
Another interesting imagery, as others have pointed out is "the cold splintering, breaking". This line is interesting because i usually do not associate cold with splintering, breaking. However when i read this line i could hear the trees cracking and splintering due to the extreme cold.
In the first section, I sense a lot of tactile imagery when the father's hands are described as cracked. This and the "blueblack" description can also be interpreted as visual imagery. The "splintering, breaking" of the cold is beautiful tactile and organic imagery. It generates the feeling of pain that one experiences when hands are defrosting. The stingy sensation.
I think overall, like several of you have mentioned, the use of imagery lends itself to a powerful mental image and interaction with the poem. As readers, we plunge into the unknown, where it is cold, dangerous, and any mistake can be fragile. "fearing the chronic angers of that house" is reflective of the emotions of the reader as well. The themes of this poem which revolve around suffering and fear depend heavily on the environment created through the imagery.
Just as a connection, I'm really impressed with how Hayden created this environment with increased use of tactile and organic imagery rather than the typical color-drainage techniques used by some other poets/authors. I feel stripped of polish/shine/gloss rather than simply visualizing a depressing environment.
I'm sorry for posting late. I procrastinated and was too tired after the opera (which was really strange...) =/
This poem sounds really familiar to me, for some reason. I think I read it in middle school.
Anyway, tactile, visual, auditory, and kinesthetic imagery were all important in enhancing the theme of this poem. The boy never recognized that although his father truly loved him, he was very cold in how he showed his love. Now looking back, the boy feels remorse that he only saw the "chronic angers" and possibly violent behavior of his father, but never saw the love. He didn't appreciate what his father did for him, which left his father "lonely" too. He learned that love can be expressed in different ways, through action rather than actual spoken words.
For me, the most powerful line in Stanza 1 was "No one ever thanked him." It embodies their cold, indifferent, and lonely attitudes at home, both of the father and the son. The first stanza had a lot of visual imagery, like "blueblack cold". I could picture waking up before dawn, when the sky is still black and it's really cold. The "blueblack" also made me think of the father's bruises from his hard labor. The "cracked hands that ached" was also really powerful because it was easy to picture and feel someone's hands like that, especially when it's so cold outside.
In the second stanza, the auditory image of "cold splintering, breaking" helped us get into the poem, and made it seem more real. The last line of this stanza also begins the organic imagery that is repeated in the third stanza.
The last two lines of the third stanza really stood out to me, because I was able to sense the raw emotion, nostalgia, and guilt behind it.
I think what's really interesting about the whole poem is that there's a lot of kinesthetic imagery in each stanza. It adds meat to the poem's theme and moves the poem along. There is a lot of motion going on. The father wakes up early, starts a fire, calls his son, "drives out the cold", and polishes his son's shoes; the boy hears the "cold", gets up, dresses, and speaks offhandedly with his father. There's a lot of action for father and son, and when you compare what they do, it's obvious that the father does much more for the son and on a daily basis. He wakes up early even on a supposedly lazy Sunday to keep the house warm -- this is real love, which the boy takes a long time to recognize.
When I read this poem, I felt that organic imagery overrode the other types. His "cracked hands that ached from labor... was the first line that created the organic imagery. I could feel his hands, and feel my hands, and the enduring pain that they go through day in and day out. I think of the times that my hands "ache" from playing piano, and "cracked" after playing on the playground in elementary school. The poem progresses, and you can feel the warmness of the house, and the warm feeling you get in your bed when the poem says "When the rooms were warm." It seems that although the cold air was piercing the sky, there was a sense of comfort and easiness within the house, a sense of warmth.
The imagery creates the poem, and makes it as strong as it is. It's not very long, so the authors main device is to capture the feelings and emotions of the readers, which is exactly what the imagery creates.
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