Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

And put his clothes on in the blueback 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?

Those Winter Sundays written by Robert Hayden is spoken through the eyes of a grown-up man remembering his childhood and relationship with his father. It is evident that there was a distance between the father and son and very little communication, it is also clear, however subtly, through the sacrifices and suffering of the father that there was also love present.

In the first stanza the speaker points out that even though it is Sunday and his hands ached, his father is still the first to rise and make the house habitable on cold, “blueblack” mornings. There are many examples of dramatic, vivid imagery such as “blueblack” which illustrates the bitter, numbing cold invading the house before sunlight has even warmed it and “cracked hands” telling the reader that the father works hard during the week, probably outside which again because of the season refers to the cold. After such eloquence the bluntness in the last sentence, “no one ever thanked him”, makes the statement even stronger. This statement also tells the reader that everyone else in the house was unappreciative as the son was of everything his father did. The fact that the father is the first to rise and build the fire shows that there are no servants or central heating which implies the inhabitants are most likely poor.

In the second stanza the speaker is lying in the safety and warmth of his bed as he waits for his dad to warm the house and literally hears the cold “splintering” and “breaking” as his dad breaks wood for a fire. Figuratively also to the son the cold would appear to be “breaking” up and disappearing from the house. The extremity of these words adds to the drama of the poem and the father-son relationship. The “chronic angers of the house” could refer literally to the house meaning the creaking and cracking of old wood or the deterioration of a worn out house. Or the line could be more figurative, referring to the people within the house and possibly the anger of the father which could imply child abuse, however because of the love that is presented through the sacrifices of the father, I think it is the former.

The speaker has now risen and seen his father, “speaking indifferently to him”. The son uncaringly brushes him off, not realizing the sacrifices his father makes for his son because he loves him. Although the question, “what did I know?” could be viewed as an excuse but because the speaker was a kid at the time it is probably an honest question. The repetition furthers this assumption because it is true, how many kids realize the sacrifices parents make while the parents are making them and they are still children? The repeated question provides an accurate explanation for the son’s indifference. It also helps us understand why now as an adult the son can appreciate and respect his father because the son has finally grasped the reason his father “drove out the cold and polished [his] good shoes as well”. It was out of love. In the last line of the poem the term “offices” does not represent a room but instead a sense of authority and responsibility which can be applied to the father and his need to look out for his son. It brings to mind the phrase “it is lonely at the top” because children do not yet have the insight and experience to realize the different forms love can take. The son only sees the father’s austerity and distance from him and misses the subtle signs of love he displays through working hard for the family during the week, rising early, and polishing his son’s shoes. The son’s inability to grasp the meaning of those actions leads him to under appreciate his father and not return his love until he is older. This poem is a lament of the speaker’s failure to recognize his father’s attempts at showing his love as a child and therefore a sadness over the fact he never returned that love.

AP Adventures

Unbeknownst to me my AP English adventures began in grade six when I decided to attempt to read all the “Penguin Classics” [that were in my school’s library]. My favorite was Jane Eyre and since then I have read it probably 20 times. Next I read Brideshead Revisited a few years later. I think I was too young to really enjoy it because it is one of my sister’s favorite books but I don’t remember much about it a.k.a. clearly was not a huge fan, so I might need to revisit that expedition. I read Anna Karenina this previous summer and thoroughly enjoyed reading about the aristocratic lives of nothingness [not being at all sarcastic]. Earlier this year I read A Farewell to Arms after reading and enjoying Son Also Rises last year. I like Hemingway’s straight forward writing style which appears simple, almost emotionless, but really hides a semi-autobiographical novel and a love story between Catherine and Henry. Most recently I’m reading Catch 22, Love In the Time of Cholera, and War and Peace. My sister has been encouraging me to read Catch 22 for a few years and I finally started, I’m not that far yet so maybe that is why I’m not a huge fan. I don’t like the character of Yossarian but I think that might be the point. I’m not far enough into the book to understand when he is being serious or not so I’m still slightly confused about what is going on. In Love in the Time of Cholera I’m about 100 pages in, so far enough to learn about the beginnings of Fermina Daza and Florentino Ariza’s love but not far enough to know what went awry and why she marries Dr. Urbino. I like Dr. Urbino with his eccentricities; his parrot, daily nap followed by a glass of lemonade, chess playing, and stubbornness. I’m not a huge fan of Marguez’s writing style, although it is very eloquent and filled with awesome descriptions, it takes him a little too long to say something. Compared to Anna Karenina War and Peace is The Terminator. Tolstoy mixes in some aristocratic fighting to the nothingness in War and Peace. So far I like Nikolai the best, even though I’m somewhat perplexed that he seems to go from 14 to 20 in a matter of months [but that may have been a misreading on my part]. Also somewhat confusing is that everyone is a prince or princess, Russia must have been teeming with them in the 1800s. I’ve also been reading World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks which is really good. It’s written entirely through interviews from around the world of different people’s experiences of the zombie attacks [in this case the zombies are more like vampires, they don’t come back from the dead but they are bitten and then become “infected” with zombie-ism]. As well as finishing the Tristen and Isolde series, I actually just read the last one yesterday. As you can see, I still have not chosen a book to write my paper on, I would like to use War and Peace but it’s questionable whether I will finish it so I’ll most likely use A Farewell to Arms or finish Catch-22.

What went wrong with Biff?

I think that Biff's breaking point occurred after he failed high school math and then decided to visit his father and discovered "The Woman." Willy had always been a hero in Biff's eyes; a popular salesman that was welcomed in every town and adored by his wife and sons at home. He joked around with the boys, he encouraged Biff in football, and joked about girls with him. Like Linda once says there was never a father more loved by his sons. However, Willy taught Biff and Happy to think the most of themselves in a way that made them rebellious rather than giving them high/healthy self-esteem. Willy also thought so highly of his sons that he could not realize their faults. When Bernard warned Willy that Biff was failing math, Willy said not to worry, no one would fail Biff with all those scholarships rather than encouraging his son to try harder and study more. When Linda said Biff was getting a reputation of being to rough with the girls, Willy laughed and said that's his son. Willy pumped himself and his sons so full of confidence that when Biff discovered Willy with the girl and realized Willy was a phony, everything he had believed before became a lie. Biff became lost, floating from job to job, not taking orders from anyone but himself but having no orders to set himself straight. Biff was floundering but Willy only saw this as spite towards himself because Biff was angry at him. Biff and Willy never talked about what happened and never came to terms with it, this was their destruction. In the end Biff finally realizes he's just a "dollar an hour" kinda guy and that he is ok with that but Willy still cannot accept the truth which eventually leads to his death.

Nora's Epiphany

#5. Eric Bentley, in an essay titles “Ibsen, pro, and Con”, criticizes the character Krogstad, calling him a “mere pawn of the plot”. He then adds, “When convenient to Ibsen, he is a blackmailer. When inconvenient, he is converted.” Do I disagree or agree?

Although I do think Krgostad’s change of heart in the end is rather miraculous and Krogstad is used as a simple solution to one conflict in the play, I will challenge Bentley’s statement for two reasons. Firstly, however small the refernence is, Ibsen does recognize Mrs. Linde and Krogstad’s former acquaintance in the Act I and therefore possibly alluding to a connection later in the play. Secondly, I do not think that blackmail, debt, and forgery are the main themes of the plot. Even though the majority of the play is centered around Nora’s dilemma [her debt to Krogstad, keeping it secret from her husband, and the forged IOU] and a way to fix it, I think that the change that Nora experiences throughout the play is the more central theme. With or without Krogstad’s decision to send the IOU back, I think that Nora would still have grown as a person and realized her marriage to Helmer is a sham and she has a duty to herself to be happy. For example, hypothetically if Krogstad had not sent back the IOU and remained the evil person he appeared to be throughout the play, Nora still would have had her moment of realization, her epiphany one could say. Nora realized Helmer was not the man she thought he was when he did not sacrifice his own honor to spare Nora’s when he received Krogstad’s letter explaining what Nora had done. Nora thought she had married her hero, “it never so much as crossed my mind that you [Helmer] would ever submit to the man’s [Krogstad’s] conditions … when the miracle didn’t happen it was then I realized you weren’t the man I thought you were.” Once the delusion of Helmer as her savior is shattered, Nora sees she has been living a lie. She realizes that everything she has done was under the pretense of keeping her “happy” marriage alive but underneath that lie there was nothing at all. Nora also realizes that “first and foremost [she] is an individual” and that she must “think things out for [herself] and get things clear.” I think that Nora’s epiphany is the main theme of the play and therefore this challenges Bentley’s statement because although a pawn, Krogstad is not central to the major theme of the play, and since Nora realizes the falsity of her life before the IOU is returned, Krogstad and his flighty change of heart are merely foils to continue the plot and create a resolution to one dilemma of the play, the issue of the debt and the IOU but not the main dilemma, which is resolved regardless of Krogstad but between Nora and Helmer.

Hamlet and Ophelia

I read both "Hamlet and Ophelia" by Rebecca West and "Producing Hamlet" by Jan Kott, both articles present a different opinion on the relationship of Ophelia and Hamlet. West holds the opinion that Ophelia is "not a chaste young woman ... shown by her tolerance of Hamlet's obscene conversations." West says that Ophelia is "foredoomed" by her father to be a mere pawn in the court. The affection between Hamlet and Ophelia is spurred on by Polonius's desire to gain favor with the prince; Ophelia is one of the "poor little girls who were sacrificed to family ambition in the days when the court was a cat's cradle of conspiracies." There is no true affection between Ophelia and Hamlet, Ophelia is only following her father's orders to either become Hamlet's mistress or when/if Hamlet falls out of favor then act as a spy for the King. On the other hand, Kott maintains that Hamlet truly loves Ophelia but "he has more important matters to attend to." Their love is fated to end because "in a world where murder holds sway, there is no room for love." Hamlet also knows he is perpetually being watched, when he dramatically cries "Get thee to a nunnery!" it is addressed to everyone listening not just to Ophelia. For the rest of the world, that cry confirms Hamlet's madness caused by his obsession with Ophelia and for Ophelia it proves that their love does not hold sway in such corrupt world. 

Oedipus: Eternally the Hero

#9. What are your feelings towards Oedipus and Creon as the play ends?

Oedipus unknowingly committed incest and murdered his father. Oedipus was oblivious to his true parentage and therefore, you could argue, completely innocent. However, Oedipus remains the hero because he sticks to his word. He said that no matter who the murderer was, he/she would suffer the same, harsh punishment. When Oedipus learns the truth he asks/commands Creon to exile him and gauges his eyes out. As king, Oedipus could have easily denied the truth and killed anyone who opposed him but instead he punishes himself like he would have anyone else. This ends Oedipus's rule of Thebes, but it shows that Oedipus has the strength and courage to be king. Although Creon denies his plans to overthrow Oedipus and any desire to be king, his fast action after Oedipus is disgraced proves he was lying. Even though Creon may never have overtly tried to seize the throne from Oedipus, his falseness and his readiness in agreeing to exile Oedipus prove his disloyalty. This contrasts Oedipus and Creon. On the outside and through his words, Creon rivals Oedipus but through his actions Creon falls short. Oedipus's ability to follow through with his actions proves he is the eternal hero and better man in the story.

The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Tolstoy condemns “Ivan Ilyich’s opportunism, marriage of convenience, vanity, and limitation, and then, with astonishment, the reader finds himself beginning to like this conventional man and to be sorry when he starts to lose out to death.”

Tolstoy introduces Ilyich as a care-free, pleasure loving follower. He lives his life in a way that society dictates he should. He takes the sort of job that is appropriate to his standing, he marries because she is a "good match", and he decorates his house just like everyone else trying to appear richer than they are. And yet as this stereotypical man nears death he begins to re-evaluate his life. Ilyich attempts to figure out what went wrong in his life, why he is suffering from such a great pain now; if it is punishment for something? Ilyich struggles to think about his life objectively, however, his society's dogma has been so deeply ingrained in his mind that he cannot bring himself to admit that living any other way could possible have been better. But as Ilyich looks further back on his life, all the way back to childhood, he notices that he can remember more "good" in his childhood memories. As the memories become more recent there is less and less Ilyich remembers as good. This is when the first inkling of doubt appears in his mind; that possibly there could have been another, better way to live his life. When Ilyich begins to realize and grasp the truth, the reader begins to sympathize with this man who is finally realizing how he could improve his life on the brink of death.