A comparison of 'Midterm Break' and 'The Early Purges' by Seamus Heaney

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A comparison of 'Midterm Break' and 'The Early Purges' by Seamus Heaney

For this assignment we have studied two poems by Seamus Heaney. Both of these poems are linked because they are about Heaney's early memories of death and how he coped with these difficult situations when he was a young.

The subject matter of the poem 'Midterm Break' is about his brother's death. It also tells us about his feelings about this death. Heaney is away at boarding school. waiting in the college sick bay. Heaney writes 'At two 'o' clock our neighbours drove me home'. Which shows that his parents were unable to come to pick him up as they might have been held up with something.

Heaney wanted to express his feelings, to let us know what he felt like having to cope with the death of his little brother. It must have been a particularly difficult situation for him.

There is a lot of sadness in the poem from the beginning. Heaney writes of 'bells knelling classes to a close'. 'knelling is a sound of funeral bells, not a school bell. This indicates that Heaney is