Compare and Contrast Heaney's treatment to death in the two poems "The Early Purges" and "Mid-Term Break".

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Compare and Contrast Heaney's treatment to death in the two poems "The Early Purges" and "Mid-Term Break".

I have studied numerous poems by the poet Seamus Heaney and I have chosen two poems to compare and contrast, the poems are The Early Purges and Mid-Term Break. In these two poems I am going to explore the way Heaney looks at the treatment of death. Both of the two poems were actual accounts in Heaney's childhood. The first poem I am going to analyse will be Mid-Term Break.

The title Mid-Term Break makes you think about positive things. Mid-term is a time for you to have a break and relax. It generally is a good thing, a thing that people look forward to.

In the first stanza Heaney is talking about himself sitting in the college sick bay, as he has been called there. The word "kneeling" is used. The word knelling is a bell sounded for someone who has died. This is a metaphor as he is sat in the sick bay listening to the bell indicating classes have finished. Also at the end of the stanza it tells you that the neighbours have