Robert Hayden the Narrator of Term Paper

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Moreover, the narrator remembers that his father used to shine his Sunday shoes. Those small gestures went unnoticed by the young boy, who viewed his silent, cold dad as a formidable family figure. The father's selflessness is further underscored by the first two words of the poem: "Sundays too," (line 1). Reflecting on his childhood, the narrator remembers that even though his father worked like a dog all week, he still wanted to wake up early enough on Sunday to spend time with his son.

Ironically, the young narrator could "hear the cold" better than he could hear his father (line 6). His father was as silent as the snow outside, but the young boy was too immature to understand his father's reticence. Children frequently need displays of affection for reassurance and security. His father could not offer verbal love to his son. As a result, the young child learned to fear his father. He believed that the father's silence stemmed from anger directed at him, and did not understand that his dad directed his resentment at the world that had dealt him such a tough blow. To have to work so hard his hands ached would have been bad enough for his father, but as the narrator notes, "No one ever thanked him," (line 5).

The sense of remorse that pervades Hayden's poem stems from the narrator's lingering guilt over not having been better able to thank his father for his hard work.

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Reflecting on his life and his father as a role model, the speaker of Hayden's poem unearths complex emotions including newly found admiration. As a child he was too young to understand that love is both "austere" and "lonely" as well as thankless (line 14). As an adult, his attitude toward his father has tremendously transformed: from fear to respect. His father loved truly, without shallow platitudes or meaningless turns of phrase. Instead, his father loved his family with….....

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