The two peaces of poetry I have studied by Seamus Heaney include

The two peaces of poetry I have studied by Seamus Heaney include

Follower and The Early Purges.

Heaney's poems both relate back to his younger, adolescent life. In

the poem 'Early purges', he describes young kittens being drowned on

the farm. His maturity is shown when he says with perception, "And

now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown, I just shrug, ' Bloody

pups' ". But we are shown that he is still careless now, as well in a

casual way by saying "I just shrug". He is also unsympathetic, and

justifies his actions like Dan. He is now older, looking back and

changed.

The language used by Heaney also expresses the fact that little was

thought of these so-called nuisances. He says they are 'slung' and Dan

Taggart describes them as 'scraggy wee shits'. This shows how

unsympathetic he was and how the kittens needn't be cared about.

Seamus Heaney also tries to describe the habitual drowning of small

kittens. Again, he tries to use language to appeal more and give us a

better personal picture of events. For instance, when describing the

kittens, just after their death, he quite brightly says, 'Like wet

gloves they bobbed and shone till he sluiced them out on the dunghill,

glossy and dead'. Glossy and dead are two contrasting words - 'glossy'

is a healthy appearance, but its only because the water drowned the

kittens, where the word 'death' comes in.

Heaney goes on to say 'watching the three sogged remains turn mealy

and crisp as old summer dung'. This is very imagery language, and

maybe quite disturbing, although I think it adds more atmosphere to

the poem, because summer is supposed to be happy and fresh, whereas

dung isn't. And 'turn mealy and crisp', which gives the impression

that he tried to pr...

... middle of paper ...

...side with Heaney. The

arguments put up by Dan Taggart, such as "Sure isn't it better for

them now?" are seen to be realistic later on in the poem when Heaney

says, "It makes sense". The images which he uses, however, encourage

us to sympathise with him, such as "Suddenly frightened, for days I

sadly hung round the yard" where we picture a small boy frightened at

the power of adults over the poor helpless animals.

This poem again, like "Follower" shows that life in the country can be

very difficult, especially if you have to kill small animals, but if

you work hard, then the farm will run better.

Both poems have main themes, and they are very similar to eachother.

It is all about the hard work involved in running a farm, the

relationship between the father and son, and the expectation that

profession and skills will be carried on throughout the family.