Traditionally, fathers run the household. They are the breadwinners: going to work, getting paid, and bringing home food. In the past, families would rely on the fathers for everything. In the present, that is not so much the case. More often than not, fathers will disregard the obligations of having a child or family and leave them behind. In Robert Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays, from a two-dimensional perspective, the narrator tells a story about all that his father does for him and regrets not appreciating him more. In Lucille Clifton’s Forgiving My Father, from a two-dimensional perspective, the narrator talks about how her father withheld from her and then eventually stops holding a grudge on him.  In this essay, I will be comparing these two poems in attempt to prove how men in the role of a father has changed over the years.

Robert Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays was written in the mid-20th century. The narrator starts off talking about all the hard work his father does. He writes, “Sundays too my father got up early/ and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold/ then with cracked hands that ached,” (CR ll 1-3).  The narrator specifies Sundays too because Sundays are usually referred to as “off days” and it shows the dedication of the father that even on Sundays he wakes up early. The narrator also emphasizes the weather just to even more show the dedication of his father. The narrator goes on to say, “When the rooms were warm, he’d call/ and slowly I’d rise and dress,” (CR ll 7-8).  He says this to show that he never helped his father and let him do all the work. At the end of the poem the narrator says, “What did I know, what did I know/ of love’s austere and lonely offices?” (CR ll 13-14). The narrator regrets not appreciating his father when his father was around. The narrator and his father did not have the best connection as the narrator says that he spoke indifferently to him, he still in the end was able to see the dedication his father had to his family and appreciated it. Evidence supports that even though the father and son may not have had the best connection, the dedication that his father had to his family in the mid-20th century was appreciate and helps to attest the attitudes that came from fathers in those years.

Lucille Clifton’s Forgiving My Father was written in the late 20th century. The narrator starts out talking about the neglect for her and the financial neglect her father has in an angrily tone. Clifton writes, “All week you have stood in my dreams/ like a ghost, asking for more time/ but today is payday, payday old man,” (CR ll 3-5). The narrator is saying that its payday and that he didn’t have the money to pay his debts since he asked for more. The narrator refers to her father as an old man and not father showing the separation between them. The narrator also refers to her mother and an early grave which one can assume through the tone of the author that the father had something to do with it. Throughout the middle of the poem she refers to her father as an “old lecher” and an “old liar” in an angry tone but later in the poem her tone changes into a forgiving tone. Towards the end of the poem, she comes to terms with her father since he is dead and she realizes she can’t hold a grudge anymore. Evidence supports how the narrator and her father had a detached and separated connection which is a theme of fathers in the late 20th century how they don’t step up to the obligations of having a family.

However, both poems carry a familiar theme. This theme is fatherly connections. In the beginning of Those Winter Sundays, the son had a detached connection from his father. Whereas in Forgiving My Father, the daughter also had a detached connection from her father. The narrator in Forgiving My Father has more a personal hatred for her father that is evident but in Those Winter Sundays, there is not a clear reason why the relationship is so detached. At the end of Robert Hayden’s poem, it’s clear that the narrator would have liked to have had a better connection with his father. In Lucille Clifton’s poem, the only reason the narrator gave up the grudge on her father was because he was dead and there was no use to hold a grudge anymore. 

In conclusion, the way the fathers behave in these poems creates the main point. Both poems address fathers and the way they act and how the child reacts to it. These poems can relate in the attitudes of the children towards their father but differentiates in how the children feel towards them when the fathers are gone. It is evident that in the mid-20th century, the father works hard around the house where in the late 20th century the father could be considered a scumbag as he owes money to many people. 
