Literary Analysis: A Follower, By Seamus Heaney

Father? Or lack thereof?

“I wanted to grow up and plough, /To close one eye, stiffen my arm.” (“Follower” 17-18). Seamus Heaney is writing about a son; interested in following his father’s footsteps to become a farmer. The poem depicts the son’s past memories of his father. Fascinated in his father’s work, influenced by his mastery at farming, the son strives to become the same at a young age. “The Writer” on the other hand, portrays a father’s observation of his daughter, struggling to write a story as an author. Both pieces, share a common interaction between parent and child, but the parent-child relationships themselves are fundamentally different. These poems represent a reflection of how the parents respectively tackle the task of raising their child.

This stems from the origins of his father teaching him by example. The father was a figure that the son looked up towards, which gave him reliance on his father. Yet, people do not stay young forever. While his father slowed down, the reliance still stayed, and now that his father cannot be seen as a beacon of help, the son no longer views his father to be a useful figure. This is not apparent in “The Writer” as the father encourages independence, “It is always a matter my darling, /Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish /What I wished you before, but harder” (“Writer” 31-33). In this last tercet, the father talks about hardships that his daughter will face through writing stories, some will succeed and live, others will fail and die. It is all a part of growing up though and he has faith she will be able to resolve them. While his daughter is still young, it can be inferred that if he continues to raise her as he does, she will develop her own methods of coping with her problems. At the end of the day, the development of the two children were heavily influenced by the actions of their