Molly Bellefeuille

English 131 9:30

Jan 21 2002

Seminar #2

The score was five to nine. The little boy weeps, for this was the first time he had played in real game of basketball, and his team lost. Even thought the little boy gave it his all his team still lost. He lay pouting on the gym floor when his mother walks over to him and says with encouragement, "That was great! Don’t worry. There's always next time." She picks him up off the floor and hugs him, letting him know that she loves him even though his team lost. Inside she knows that his hard work will pay off sometime. This mother-son relationship is a great example of the way families work together. With the mother's everlasting love, she encourages and teaches her son to go on through the hard roads of life. Families should work together and share their love as they make their way through life. Hard work, love, and guidance are all family qualities that shine throughout the poems, "Those Winter Sundays," "To my Brother Miguel," and "Mother to Son." The qualities of hard work, love, and guidance are a family's key to survival and are expressed in most well developed families.

First of all, the poem, "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden, shows how family members have to give and work hard to make a family work. A family is not a family unless they all work together. Sometimes one member of the family may end up working harder than the rest to make sure things get done. In the poem, "Those Winter Sundays," the father works hard at making fires for his family so their house is warm even though his hands ache from the labor he does during the week. "Then with cracked hands that ached / from labor in the weekday weather he made / banked fires" (51, lines3-5). The father's extra efforts help the family stay warm. Sometimes family members are not recognized for the extra efforts that they put in. "No one ever thanked him" (51, line 5). Even though the father did not have to make the fires and was never thanked, he knew that it was something that had to be done for the family. Hard work is a quality that helps a family survive. Although members of a family are not recognized for every thing they do, they continue to give; that is one thing that makes a family so special.

Another important quality of a family is its ability to teach and guide its members in the right direction. Langston Hughes wrote, "Mother to Son," which is a poem about a mother teaching her son to keep going in life and not to give up. The mother says, "Don't you turn back . . . Don't you fall now" (52, lines 14 and 17). She encourages her son to keep working hard through life. The mother talks about how her life "…ain't been no crystal stair" (52, lines 20-21). This mother's teaching are helping guide her son through life. Members of a family may give a lot of hard work and not be recognized for it, but they will always learn something from their family. Just like with the mother who teachers her son to keep playing basketball and not to sweat it that his team lost. The son will learn that it's ok to lose a game because there is always next time. The learning and guiding process of a family enables it to grow in the right direction through life.

The last and most important quality of a family is its everlasting love. The poem, "To My Brother Miguel" by Cesar Vallejo, shows how strong a family's love is. The poem is about a man who has lost his brother. The man remembers all the fun times he had with his brother and expresses how he misses and wishes his brother were still alive. The man says, "Brother today I'm sitting on the bench outside our house where you are missed so deeply!"(68, Lines 1-2). The man really expresses how much he misses his brother and how strong their love for each other once was. Love is the most important quality of a family because it is what holds them together. Even after death the brother still has love for his brother who has passed away and hopes he comes back, "Hay, brother, don't take so long / Coming out (68, lines 18-19). Love bonds people together and holds them up through the hard times of life. Just like the little boy playing basketball, his mom's love was there to hold him up, help him be strong, and go on. Without love, a family would not be as strong.

In conclusion, a family is made up of three qualities. The family must be hardworking, teaching, and loving. The poem, "Those Winter Sundays," is a great example of a hard working family. "Mother to Son" shows how a family is able to learn together and teach each other through life. The last poem, "To my Brother Miguel," shows how much love there is in a family and how the love goes on even after death, holding the family together. Families that do not have the qualities of love, hard work, and guidance (teaching) have many difficulties such as abuse, fighting, and arguing. In the poem, "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke, is about a family that has abuse in it. The father of the family is not hard working; in fact, he is drunk. "The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy." (61, Lines 1-2). Since the father is drunk he has no love for the family and so there is no bond to hold them together. The family in "My Papa's Waltz" is falling apart because it is not hardworking, it doesn't have love and there is no guidance or teaching. The three qualities of love, hard work and guidance (teaching) are very important to a family; they are what hold it together and get it through life.