Seamus Heaney Clearances Essay

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151,600 people die each day, yet the reality of death is still difficult for us to comprehend and the mourning of a loved one never gets any easier. Seamus Heaney created his 1987 elegiac poem ‘Clearances’ which as you would expect is about mortality. He used this to express his feelings towards the loss of his mother and to reflect upon their complicated but intimate relationship, his own aging, and the afterlife. Heaney traditionally conforms to the conventions recurrent within the genre elegy: the lament, admiration, consolation and poetic techniques.
The poem begins the same way in which all elegies tend to do; with a lament. The opening sonnet presents ‘A cobble thrown a hundred years ago’ which was aimed towards his mother’s grandmother, …show more content…

The beginning of the second sonnet is dedicated to displaying in detail the pristine and proper home life Heaney had grown up with. ‘Brass taps shone’ and ‘The china cups were very white and big- An unchipped set’ confirms his mother was a proud homemaker and Heaney’s attention to such details suggests a kind of childlike admiration towards her. He also appears to have an underlying appreciation for his mother who placed large importance to good manners, order, and cleanliness. Towards the end of his poem, Heaney fondly reflects upon a memory of him and his mother peeling potatoes together, which then becomes an insight into their relationship. ‘I was all hers’ strongly indicates the emotional bond Heaney has with his mother. Also through the use of word choice, ‘gleaming’ and ‘pleasant’ transforms this mundane job together into a psychological divine experience. However, they did have a complicated relationship shown through ‘broke the silence’ which suggests that they did not have a communicative or intellectual relationship with one another but more of a spiritual attachment. Therefore, shown through Heaney’s reflection on his upbringing and memories of his mother it is seen he emphasises a great admiration for her and is going through the essential stages of

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