comparison of "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden and "My Papas Waltz" by Theodore Roethke

Good, bad, or indifferent, we all still call him dad.  “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, and “My Papas Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, are two somewhat similar poems about a son and his attitude towards his father. However, aside from the plot similarities, the two poems are very different, in a way that the two sons have two very different attitudes toward their fathers. In “Those Winter Sundays,” the son expresses his appreciation for his father. Throughout the poem, the son is in realization of the sacrifices his father made for him, and how he, nor anyone else, ever thanked him. This demonstrates the son’s positive attitude towards his father. On the other hand, in “My Papas Waltz,” the son explains dancing with his drunken father, and how his father doesn’t know he is hurting him, because he is drunk. The son expresses his negative attitude towards his father through such details, revealing his discomfort. From reading both of these poems, we learn that children have unique relationships with their parents.

           In “Those Winter Sundays,” the child/speaker has a very positive attitude towards his father. As the son recalls the sacrifices his father made for him he remembers how his father drove out in the freezing cold, and polished his shoes. This reveals the speakers appreciative emotions towards his father, because he never realized how much his father did for him. Further demonstrating his positive attitude toward his father. Moreover, to quote the first stanza, the speaker says; “Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.”  This further expresses the current appreciation acknowledgement that he hadn’t thanked him when he had the chance. Although no one thanked the speaker’s father, he still worked hard. Not so people would thank him, but out of love. The speaker realizes this when he says, “What did I know, what did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?”  In all, the son in “Those Winter Sundays” has a positive attitude towards his father.

        

            In contrast to “Those Winter Sundays,” in “My Papas Waltz,” the son has a very negative attitude towards his father. He explains how dancing with his dad is uncomfortable: “The whiskey on your breath, Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death:  Such waltzing was not easy.”  This shows how the father is making the boy uncomfortable because he was making him dizzy, and he also describes how it was difficult to dance with his father cause he was drunk. This reveals the speakers negative attitude towards his father. The speaker uses word choice and details to describe what kind of person his father is, when drunk. Additionally, to quote the third stanza: “The hand that held my wrist   was battered on one knuckle; at every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle.” This demonstrates how the father is causing harm to the son. The speaker includes these details about his dad to validate how hard he is to be around. In summary, the son in “My papas waltz,” has a negative impact towards his father.

         In summary, we learn that children have unique relationships with their parents. We learn this through two poetic pieces of literature. We learn this through the comparison of two pieces of literature. In “My Papas Waltz” a child endures abuse from his drunken father, expressing his negative attitude towards his father throughout the poem. In contrast, in  “Those Winter Sundays” the child expresses his appreciation for his father through the listing of the various sacrifices his father made for him, evidencing his positive attitude towards his father. This demonstrates how children have unique relationships with their parents.