Explication of "Those WInter Sundays" by Robert Hayden

The poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden starts by describing the narrator’s father’s tough morning tasks on Sunday and presumably other days as well based on the beginning phrase “Sundays too.” The imagery of blueblack cold suggest a level of frigidity beyond the ordinary and a nuanced way of evicting a dislike for the cold.  The cold is being described in a similar way to a bruise, which helps with the negative connotation. Also, the poem refers to the father’s “crack hands that ached.” The end of that line ends with a dismal statement of the ingratitude toward the father’s sacrifice that, as is seen in the second stanza, enables the others to get up in a warm house. Hayden describes the cold as being heard “splintering” and “breaking.” This is a very unusual mode of imagery in which something tactile has been transmogrified to be auditory. It does help the reader imagine that the house is breaking free and brings to mind the idea that the house is full of ice (though it is not literally full of ice). In the last stanza, we see the relationship between the narrator and his father: that the child spoke “indifferently” and acted ungratefully while the father chased away the cold and polished his son’s shoes. Looking back, the child realizes how amazing is what his father used to do for him. The final statement sums up the unusual characterization of love presented throughout the poem. It presents love as having “austere and lonely offices.” Normally, love is attributed to warmth, joy, and comfort, but here it involves toil. Hayden shows with all of the imagery and discussion of cold that real love is not just shown by sensation but also by self-sacrificing work. The depth of this kind of love is also shown by the father’s continuation of his office despite his son’s cold attitude toward his service.