Unit 3. post 5.

Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden.

I can connect with this poem very well because I have a somewhat similar relationship with my father. The father is seen as a gruff and unforgiving. His image is created as that of a hard and unloving individual. 

"with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fire blazes" (Hayden, line 3-4). 

The father is not appreciated by the family, it seems. Maybe it is that lack of appreciation that forces him to be so cold and unresponsive to love of others. My father works 7 days a week sometimes and it makes him grumpy and unexcited. I feel like my father feels unappreciated for his efforts sometimes and that makes him spiteful and impatient. I love my father, unconditionally, and I think that the message of this poem revolves around the concept that we should stop and thank our father for all the effort they put forward for their love of us. This poem has a profound impact that strikes the reader's pathos. Because many of us might have the same type of relationship with our fathers as what is described in the poem, a reader might be swayed to make their appreciation for their father more visible. I think that the author wanted the reader to relate so they reflect on their own relationship with their father.