In Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" the speaker shows that his father does take care of him and the family - " Sundays too 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 bank fires blaze." - but the speaker doesn't understand his father's love as he should. The speaker sees his father's love as distant and this is why their relationship isn't as close. Hayden also uses symbols to further explain the father's relationship with the speaker. " Those Winter Sundays" begins in the setting of a cold Sunday morning and from then on the poem's biggest focus has been on the temperature. This is because temperature is a symbol in this poem. The temperature in the house and outside the house (cold) represents the speaker's inner feelings &/or relationships. The weather in and out is cold, therefore the speaker's relationship with the father is cold or distant. In the poem the speaker doesn't understand that the father's action of literally warming the house is also the father's expression of love.
In Theodore Roethke's " My Papa's Waltz" the speaker and the father's relationship is different than that of "Those Winter Sundays". The speaker and the father's relationship isn't easy but they are still both content and satisfied with the love of their relationship. The symbols in this poem are waltzing. Waltzing in this poem represents the father and the speaker's relationship, the speaker says that the relationship isn't easy " But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy" , but later on in the story he is still content in the relationship," You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt, Them waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt. "
