Séamus Heaney's Mid-Term Break
Séamus Heaney's "Mid-Term Break" is among the few poems that have emotionally moved me. The writer uses many techniques including similes, metaphors and beautiful lexical choice to convey the sombre and miserable situation of his brother's death. In this essay I am going to analyse the language of the poem and discuss, in more detail, the techniques used to convey the real sadness of the situation.
"Mid-Term Break" is a very emotive poem in which Séamus Heaney reflects on the untimely demise of his little brother Christopher and explains what was going through his mind at that time. The poem's title suggests a holiday but this "break" does not happen for pleasant reasons. For most of the poem Heaney writes of people's differing reactions and at the end he is able to grieve honestly. In the poem Heaney travels home from school to attend the funeral of his 4-year old brother who was killed in a tragic accident. During the funeral Heaney is confronted with many issue's that make him feel uneasy while he still struggles to come to terms with the incident that stands before him: the death of his little brother!
In this poem, the writer uses many techniques to express the misery of the situation. The writer uses effective word choice in the first stanza.
"I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close"
Here we can see that the word "all" suggests that Heaney's time waiting seems intermiable which adds to the sadness of the situation. Furthermore the "counting" of the bells advocates that Heaney is bored but also implies that he is desperate to leave school which creates a very tense atmosphere. In addition the word "knelling" ironically suggests...
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...his poem and as a result successfully conveyed the sadness and misery of losing a loved one. I particularly was moved when he used a simile to describe his brother as sleeping rather than dead; it portrayed his brother as an innocent little boy. Moreover, when he created a soft image of a hideous scar I was touched as he obviously loved his brother to a great extent. I sympathise with Heaney to a great length as it is a tragic loss to lose a family member especially if it is someone you are exceptionally close to like a brother or sister. This poem has revealed to me the true significance of life and also the unimaginable pain of death. This poem has made me realise that you do not properly appreciate something until it is gone. In light of this I have learned that you should always respect and treat one another well as you never know when their time will come!
In Seamus Heaney’s poetry, there is a recurring theme of his talking of the past, and more predominantly about significant moments in time, where he came to realisations that brought him to adulthood. In “Death of a Naturalist” Heaney describes a moment in his childhood where he learnt that nature was not as beautiful as seem to be when he was just a naive child. Heaney does this on a deeper level in “Midterm Break” describes his experience of his younger brothers funeral and the mixed, confusing feelings he encountered, consequently learning that he no longer was a child, and had no choice but to be exposed to reality. Robert Frost in one sense also describes particular moments in time, where his narrator comes to realisations. However, Frost writes more indirectly than Heaney, and all together more metaphorically. In “A Leaf Treader” he symbolically talks about life and death through the autumn season. He does the same, in “The Road Not Taken” where the two roads are described to be a metaphor for the decisions one makes in life, and the inevitable regrets we face due to those decisions. In “Stopping by a Woods on a Snowy Evening” Frost directly talks directly of a moment in time, however the significant meaning being that in life one needs a moment of solace to appreciate peace and beauty.
Through the appropriate use of poetic structure, Collins is able to create a basis from where we start to analyze the sadness, pain and nostalgia of change. Collins starts with the tittle. The title of the poem is frank and self-explanatory—the three words ‘On Turning Ten’. It may even seem a little bit banal because the title seems a bit too ordinary and cliché. Yet, the title takes on compelling significance in understanding the meaning of the poem once the central messages of the poem become clearer. And, by the last line, the reader will be able to see that “On Turning Ten” isn’t just about a child turning ten but a poem which shows life changes are often painful and nostalgic. Then there is the structure. The poem is written in a free verse form of five stanzas which is not constituted of consistent meter patterns nor any other musical patterns and tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech. Change is intrinsic, wild and painful; thus, it is very adequate to use a free verse style in “On Turning Ten” because it reflects the irregularity and spontaneousness ...
Dave Lucas’s “November” and Mark Bibbins’ “Groupie” have similar themes and tone but different topics, settings, and poetic stylings. These poems express the melancholy of unrelated endings. By exploring the poet’s goals and examining theme, tone, poetic diction, end-stop, enjambment, and use of color in imagery, the reader can see how the poems reflect each other in their exploration of mournful endings.
There are a couple of similes the author uses in the poem to stress the helplessness she felt in childhood. In the lines, “The tears/ running down like mud” (11,12), the reader may notice the words sliding down the page in lines 12-14 like mud and tears that flowed in childhood days. The speaker compares a...
In this essay I will be comparing three Seamus Heaney poems we looked at in class these are called, “Follower”, “Mid-term Break” and, “Digging”.
Seamus Heaney’s “Personal Helicon” reflects on the past, illuminating the clash between innocent curiosity of adolescence and wide-ranging moralities expected of adults. Although the poem lacks extreme, unnecessary sentiment, the speaker manages to personally connect himself with nature in order to create an enjoyable, wistful tone. The poet incorporates intense, powerful vocabulary in order to enhance the lines, which allows the reader to comprehend the recollections with greater illustrations and feel.
Author James Joyce has written many short stories which were composed to explain Dublin’s way of life. The book is known to his readers as Dubliners. His short stories have been written to help readers understand the many different feelings that were established in Dublin during a time of crisis. During this time in Dublin many changes were occurring and the city was rebuilding from the tragic potato famine and certainly rebuilding as a country. In three certain stories, “The Sisters”, “An Encounter”, and “The Dead,” the literary symbols of escape and journey appear within individuals which are always trying to run from the problems of society. These actions taken help understand why the characters have feelings of escape and run from the society of Dublin in this era. Certainly, in all three stories the major theme expressed can be determined when individuals try to escape society and the reality of Dublin.
That did not stop me, however, from pulling apart each line for my eager exploration. At first, his religious adherence gave me pause. Not being religious myself, I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be able to read the poem as Lawrence had meant it to be. But I did understand pain and death. Death of a friendship, of a home, of one moment that wrecked my fairly average life. What have you. For some people, it could be something as simple as the loss of a job or pet. At the core, it is pain all same.
but you may not notice the change in perspectives until Heaney writes ‘But today it is my father who keeps stumbling……. And will not go away’ this line shows that the son who was always the one tripping and falling and lagging behind his father is finally the one in the lead. But the poem further stats that the son is getting irritated by the father because he won’t go away, he finally understands that this is what he was like to him when he was younger.
The poet writes in the first person throughout the poem. He writes about his Father and his Grandfather and he seems to move from describing his Father to describing his Grandfather. He does this so smoothly that the reader harldy notices the transition that took place. The second clue is slightly more hidden. The poet mentions turf. Now Ireland is one of the only countries left in Europe that still have turf bogs. Since Seamus Heaney is Irish there is an obvious link to his country. When the poet writes about his Grandfather he implies that there used to be a lot of turf cutters in his day.
Author Seamus Heaney, in the poem “Mid-Term Break,” gives the reader a snapshot of death, detached from any emotional perspective, using narration, imagery, and foreshadowing. This event greatly affected the young poet and he recalls to the reader his memory the events precisely to the hour, with bells dismissing classes at two o’clock, to the ambulance arriving at ten o’clock. The speaker in the poem, assumed to be the poet himself, a young college student returns home mid-semester to attend the funeral of his 4 year old brother at his family’s home. The older brother finds his sibling lying in a small coffin, the color drained from his little cheeks. With the death of his young brother, Heaney is moved to write about the experience and in turn he gives the reader a somber look at death in his family.
An elegy is a poem of lament, usually formal and sustained, over the death of a particular person; also, a meditative poem in plaintive or sorrowful mood. Through an elegy authors are able to convey their deepest remorse and grief through the eloquent use of the English language. Three elegies in which show the possible interpretations and moral convictions of death are “Elegy for Jane”, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, and “A Satirical Elegy”.
Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden is a short poem that illustrates the emotions that he is dealing with after the love of his life passes away. The tone of this piece evokes feelings that will differ depending on the reader; therefore, the meaning of this poem is not in any way one-dimensional, resulting in inevitable ambiguity . In order to evoke emotion from his audience, Auden uses a series of different poetic devices to express the sadness and despair of losing a loved one. This poem isn’t necessarily about finding meaning or coming to some overwhelming realization, but rather about feeling emotions and understanding the pain that the speaker is experiencing. Through the use of poetic devices such as an elegy, hyperboles, imagery, metaphors, and alliterations as well as end-rhyme, Auden has created a powerful poem that accurately depicts the emotions a person will often feel when the love of their live has passed away.
Ever since children are young growing up and becoming an adult is something that children cannot wait for while it is something their parents dread. Seamus Heaney published his poem Follower in 1966 in his book Death of a Naturalist. Follower mostly takes place in the past where Heaney viewed his father as role model and wanted to be like him. Heaney was his father's shadow, but as time progressed his father then in turn became his follower and his shadow. Heaney published another poem titled The Harvest Bow in 1979. In The Harvest Bow Heaney talks about his memories of his father plating and making a bow out of wheat, something he did very often
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