All stories are written using different ideas that relate back to an important theme or main idea. It oftentimes is in the form of a message or it can be directly related to the theme of another similar poem. In the case of Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays", and Lucille Clifton's "Forgiving My Father", the main ideas of each poem are directly related to each other but expressed through similar and different events in each story. The two short stories both show examples of the narrator's view of a superior character and how the superior character is valued. Each story expresses the ideology of working for the ones they love and the end result of doing so, and they share similar stylistic writing components such as the choice of language and tone. This is important to the reader because it allows them to compare and contrast the two short stories and find a common theme within. The two stories share a common theme surrounding the importance of parent-child relationships and the expectation within each relationship. The expectation is not properly fulfilled in both of the poems, creating a different approach to this theme between the two pieces. 

"Those Winter Sundays" is about a weak relationship between a father and his child. The father dedicates the majority of his time working hard to raise enough money to support his child and ensuring that the house is always well suited for his child. The child does not appreciate his father's work but takes it more as a negative sign of neglect from his father. The author, Robert Hayden, writes, "with cracked hands that ached / from labor in the weekday weather made / banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him" (3-5). The father's dedication to his work goes unappreciated by his child, and by many other people in his life, but as the story progresses the reader sees that the child becomes more aware of the father's love and selflessness in his actions. The reader sees another example of this when the author writes, "what did I know / of love's austere and lonely offices" (Hayden 13-14). The father is experiencing more pain than the child was aware of, not just from his demanding work, but also from emotional stresses, and the child now appreciates his father's hard work and love more than ever before. The opposite reaction occurs in Lucille Clifton's Forgiving My Father, which tells of a struggling father  -- daughter relationship with the obvious absence of a mother. At the beginning of the story, the daughter goes to the father to collect money from him that he owes to her mother, who has passed away. The father struggles each month to support his daughter without his wife, and it frustrates the daughter. She says, "I wish you were so rich so I could take it all / and give the lady what she was due" (Clifton 10-11). The daughter wants to avoid her father at all costs because she knows that her mother deserved more than he ever gave her and she is upset with his lack of hard work. She tells him that he was, "the pocket that was going to open / and come up empty any friday" (Clifton 17-18). The daughter in the story continues to nag her father about the money that he owes her knowing that he cannot provide her with what she is asking for. She never learns to truly value her father as the child in Those Winter Sundays eventually does. No matter how hard he works, she still sees him as a failure to herself and her deceased mother. Both of these poems tell of the expectation that the child has placed on his or her father. As the father figure works to make money, one child becomes satisfied with his dedication to his work. On the other hand, the child written about in the second poem is not nearly satisfied and continues to expect more from her father. 

As both stories refer to a father figure who is expected to provide for his family, each father works with a different driving factor. In "Those Winter Sundays", the father is able to provide for his child and, although it takes time, the child eventually learns to appreciate his hard work and unconditional love. He does not necessarily work solely outside of the house to support his child, though. The author writes about a father "who had driven out the cold / and polished my good shoes as well" (Hayden 11-12), showing that when he returns home he continues to work around the house to do all that he can for the ones he loves so that they can have the best possible life. Hayden also writes, "with cracked hands that ached / from labor in the weekday weather made / banked fires blaze"(3-5). No matter how much pain the father was in or how hard it was for him to go on, he never failed to love and support his family. In the second poem, "Forgiving My Father", the father was not as responsible in his work and with his money and did not care as deeply about the well being of his family. His daughter continued to complain to him that he "gave her all you had / which was nothing" (Clifton 14-15), referring to the father who failed to give his wife what she deserved. The father never cared enough about his wife and daughter to put his best effort towards working to provide for them and give them all that he possibly could with the situation he was in. He continued to "come up empty any Friday"(Clifton 18), which was payday for the family bills. This left the daughter extremely disappointed and upset with her father. These examples all relate back to the common theme again. As the fathers in both poems work hard day in and day out to support their children, they begin to realize why they are working. They spend so much time working trying to support their family and fulfill the expectation set out for them by their children. Whether or not their children are satisfied does not stop them from pushing themselves to work harder and bring home as much as they can. 

To continue to show the extent of the appreciation or disappointment of the father, both authors write using specific writing styles. Robert Hayden uses a style of writing that is referred to as volta. Volta is an Italian word meaning "turn"(Glossary). In the case of "Those Winter Sundays", the turn is in the style of writing that Hayden uses to extend the description of the relationship between the child and his father. The first two stanzas are scattered with harsh words and hard syllables such as "cracked"(Hayden 3), "ached"(3), and "splintering"(6). These words give the poem a negative tone and set the mood for the poor relationship of the father and child that had been present for so long. As the third stanza begins, the author uses less harsh vocabulary such as "polished"(Hayden 12) and "good"(12). The change in the severity of the language combined with the child's newfound appreciation for his father both strongly effects the change of tone in the poem. This drastic change, or turn, is called volta. Lucille Clifton does not use volta in her writing of "Forgiving My Father" because there is no drastic change in the relationship. The daughter never truly does learn to appreciate her father; therefore there is a continuation of the hatred that she feels towards him. Throughout the entire poem the daughter professes the hate that she feels towards her father though harsh phrases such as, "daddy old lecher"(Clifton 9) and, "old pauper, old prisoner, old dead man" (Clifton 20). A drastic change in the way she talks to her father does not occur anywhere in the poem as it did in "Those Winter Sundays". This style of writing that excludes the use of a volta is a style that Clifton chose wisely to emphasize how horrible the relationship between the father and daughter remained. It aids the reader in understanding that the main character does not fully learn to appreciate her father or forgive him for his actions, no matter how potentially beneficial his actions may be for his daughter. This stylistic technique helps to reiterate the overall theme of expectations in a father-child relationship to the reader by showing the reader the change in the relationships. In the first poem, the child is originally upset with the father, not understanding why he cannot provide for his child. The use of volta aids the reader in seeing that the expectations were laid out and fulfilled, therefore improving the relationship between the two characters. The daughter in the second poem, however, does not find the same fulfillment of expectations from her father. By not applying the technique of a volta, the reader understands that the relationship has not changed since the beginning of the piece. 

Hayden and Clifton's works are both centered on very similar themes and morals, but each of the poems portrays a different perspective on the issue. Hayden focuses his attention on a relationship between a father and son that begins weak, with a lack of respect for his elder, but slowly turns into a relationship full of respect, understanding, and love. The author displays this relationship through his use of harsh words followed by the use of a stylistic technique called volta. Volta expresses the turn in tone between the characters in the last stanza of the poem when the son begins to recognize all of the good things that the father has done for him. In contrast to that, the author of "Forgiving My Father", Lucille Clifton, expressed different feelings towards the main character's father through similar literary elements. The entire poem includes harsh language and unappreciative phrases about the daughter's feelings towards her father. Clifton does not include a volta which tells the reader that there is no change in the relationship between the father and daughter at anytime in the poem. Both authors wrote about the value of elders, the reasoning for how hard elder's work, and the progression of a child and father relationship through literary elements. They each used different techniques to portray the themes, making the two poems easy to compare and contrast.
