Blackberrying is the second of Plath’s poems, which I shall be studying. It begins, again, rather dully and yet brings across more of a scenic image as opposed to the self analysis of Mirror. “Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries.” Obviously this opening line is trying to show a picture of large numbers of blackberries, but notice how she emphasises the negatives as though it is the fact that here are no forms of life around which she is enjoying and not the blackberries. The first image, which she writes of, is that of the size of the berries “big as the ball of my thumb” but she then adds to this by saying the berries are “dumb as eyes”. This is an interesting image to be putting to the reader for she is mixing the senses suggesting that the berries have eyes. However this does not bother her because unlike people the berries cannot speak to harm her in any way. She moves on from this to include anthropomorphism by describing the berries as “fat”, this is normal terminology for a person or other animal not for a plant, implying again that the berries do have certain almost human qualities. She then moves on to be overwhelmed by the berries, “I had not asked for such blood sisterhood” now indicating that she even has a bond with the berries even though the image is simply of the berries being squashed. She enjoys this and the control she has over the berries “They accommodate themselves to my milk bottle” this shows an image of berries falling passively into the containment awaiting them.
The next verse brings the only animals in the poem “Overhead go the coughs in black, cacophonous flocks.” The image introduced here is one of abhorrence, for the birds are not welcome to her and this is shown in the poem and thus draws a similar picture in the readers’ mind. The next reference to the birds is of them “protesting” and “protesting” showing them to be out of character with the rest of the scene. The subject of the verse is then changes and she talks of the berries again. However, this time she talks of a rotting bush, but what is more interesting is that she sees the bush as beautiful “I come to one bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies”. You can see how instead of seeing the reality she is trying to be naive so as not to spoil the scene. She then talks in greater detail of the flies and even makes them out as pleasant” hanging their bluegreen bellies and their wing panes in a Chinese screen”. Further to do with the flies I believe is the most important image in the poem. Thus when she describes the bush as “heaven” and although she is talking of the flies’ thoughts it is also clear that she sees the scene as a satisfyingly peaceful afterlife.
The final verse talks of the end of the end of the valley and the suddenness at which it his her “From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me”. Even though the next image does not covey to me any relevant meaning the image of “phantom laundry in my face” really shows a good grasp of the sense which is upon somebody hit by a strong wind. She follows by talking of the shrubs and bushes around her and does this by showing them to be pure but the sea to be a corrupter of this purity by throwing salt at them “These hills are too green and sweet to have tasted salt”. However, she goes onto talk of the sea as an awe inspiring site “nothing, nothing but a great space of white and pewter lights”. This is another powerful image but one which could also be associated with that of heaven and maybe it is Plath’s adoration for the afterlife which drives this wonder for the sea. Even though she enjoys these images she still ends the poem talking of the sounds of the waves and her dislike to them “A din like silversmiths beating and beating at an intractable metal”. She uses the adjective “din” for this description which like “cacophonous” is an ugly way of describing sound. The last word of this poem, although used here as a simile, is till a contrast to everything else in the poem for it is man made, and perhaps more interesting is the fact that it is used to describe one of only two dislikes in the whole poem.
I believe the basis of this poem is Plath’s need for peace. I believe this because everything harmonious and passive in the poem is described in a loving way whereas the squawking of the birds and the crashing of the sea are described very much to her dislike. Looking from an alternative perspective I believe the alley is supposed to represent Plath’s journey through life. This starts with the mass of blackberries ripe and perfect as a child. Next above in the sky fly “choughs in black cacophonous flocks” this could represent those people who have disrupted her life. Penultimately we reach the “bush of berries so ripe it is a bush of flies” this could be seen as how Plath sees her old age before she reaches the sudden end “From between two hills a sudden wind funnels at me”.
To show a clear contrast between Plath and Heaney the next poem I shall study is Blackberry-Picking by Heaney. The poem begins in a very direct manner for Heaney sets the scenario, forcing in no rhythm, rhyme or second meanings “Late August, gives heavy rain and sun for a full week, the Blackberries would ripen”. Then instead of describing the whole scene, he isolates just one berry and talks of that “At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others red, green, hard as a knot”. This represents a good way of really relating across to the reader his exact thoughts thus producing a strong picture in the mind. He adds to this by sharing his own thoughts with the reader “You ate that fist one and its flesh was sweet”. He then starts on a more refined use of imagery by always relating his previous description with ones further down. This is noted when he talks of the “lust for Picking” for it is as a bloodlust would be to “summer’s blood”. The next clever uses of words after this comes a few lines down when he entwines compound words into his lines to create the feeling that they used everything they could “Sent us out with milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots”. It is when the containers begin to fill that Heaney cleverly mixes the senses by using a sound descriptive word to talk of something he sees, “Until the tinkling of the bottom has been covered”, this represents a first use of onomatopoeia.
This is something I did not notice in Plath’s writing but what I did notice was her imagining the blackberries as eyes as Heaney does here “on top big dark blobs burned like a plate of eyes”. This may suggest a correlation in the writings but I shall talk more of this in my conclusion”. Thus I move to the last line of this verse there is another notable reference to blood “our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s”. This is the third reference to blood in this verse (the first “a glossy purple clot”) showing that Heaney is well able to link his poems not just through general subject matter but in his imagery description.
The point, which I have just reasoned above also, relates to the first line of this second verse for having “hoarded the fresh berries” shows how they wished to keep them for themselves just as Bluebeard did with his wives. Moving on from this point we see Heaney’s incorporation of alliteration into this poem “But when the bath was filled we found a fur”. This shows Heaney’s good use of rhyme for he forces nothing, but unlike Plath does not complicate descriptions more than necessary. This “fur” is also part of the next line ‘a rat-grey fungus glutting on our cache”. This line shows a good and clear use of metaphor, for as the fungus resembles a rat in its appearance the verb “glutting” also shows a resemblance to the way in which a rat acts, a distinct use of personification. This is the only direct use of it I can see in this poem and so I shall move onto my last comment on the writings of the poem. This comes in amongst the last few lines where we see the child in Heaney coming through “It wasn’t fair “. This shows how Heaney loves to recollect this moment through childhood images of such days. Again this is shown in the last two lines when he talks of longing for something to happen even though he knew it never could “Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not”. This is again the thought of a child being spoken of in this final image creating a good description of the activity as a whole and not just the scenery.
From analysing this poem it is clear that Heaney has a great love for his childhood activities of long ago. His use of imagery in this poem shows how he tries to convey the atmosphere then in a basic and direct manor which is also what I think he is doing in the next of his poems I shall be studying, Churning Day.
Heaney begins Churning Day by, straight away, depicting the essence of the poem that is, obviously, the “agitated milk”. This introduction then leads on to an assimilation between Churning Day and the richness of alcohol “After the hot brewery of gland”. This point is further asserted in the next line “cool porous earthenware fermented the buttermilk”. All these ideas show how Heaney enjoys this day, for everything is described using comforting, pure or lazy adjectives “the hooped churn was scoured with plumping kettles and the busy scrubber echoed daintily on the seasoned wood”. The idea of purity is related to or used many times in this poem “It stood then, purified, on the flagged kitchen floor”, “their white insides, into the sterile churn”. This shows how absolute Heaney sees this day to be and it is, as Blackberry-Picking, an influential childhood memory.
In the second verse Heaney again revives the continuos alcohol simile that is inclusive throughout the poem “The staff like a great whisky muddler”. This shows again, as in Blackberry-Picking, how Heaney links his descriptions across the poem so as not to lose any of the images. To add to these images it is necessary to include word uses such an onomatopoeia, which he does well “set up rhythms that slugged and thumped for hours”. These two highlighted words express onomatopoeia as they put forward a sound and feel to the poem in a single expression. Another good word use for imagery is that of anthropomorphism, which he uses when talking of the “Cheeks and clothes splattered with flabby milk”. This word “flabby“ works as “pluming” did in the first verse for they are both words used, normally to describe animals or people and not inanimate objects. By introducing this use of words he allows the poem to have life without really talking of any human activity.
The final word use, which I have already described in the previous poem, is personification. This is used at the start of the third verse “When finally gold flecks begin to dance”. This metaphor gives the butter life for although the butter does not “dance” it does act like it in the image given. The strongest image in this third verse comes across in the metaphor “coagulated sunlight”. This gives the image that the butter has its own special glow and this shows how much Heaney loves it.
The poem is drawn to an end in the thirty-second line, when Heaney talks of “brains turned crystal full of clean deal churns”. Although this is supposed to be an effect of the butter it is also a metaphor for saying that this memory formed an image in his mind, which shall be with him forever.
In conclusion I see this poem to have much the same fundamental ideas as the previous one. This is because it again is sparked off by childhood memories and contains many of the same ideas as Blackberry-Picking such as the references to alcohol creation in this poem and blood in the last.
To conclude this essay I, as I said I would will, relate the two poets and their works. I would say that Heaney bases his poems about memories he has had from his childhood and his love for the rural surroundings and way of life, He appeals to all five senses with his use of onomatopoeia “rhythms that slugged and thumped for hours”. His poems also seem to relate very much to life and learning, for this is what both the poems I have analysed are about. He enjoys his nostalgic images and rights about them with a passion.
I see Plath as very much an opposite writer. To her images are unsettling (Mirror is based upon this idea) for the world to her is a frightening place full of objects and people that can hurt her (e.g. the sea and lake). She uses her poems to express the journey through life, for example, the Blackberry alley, I have explained, as her life moving forward and she does not know when it will end “I do not think the sea will appear at all”. She also expresses this helpless journey through life at the end of Mirror “In me she has drowned a young girl and on me an old woman rises towards her day after day”.
To finally conclude this essay I would say that Heaney uses images to express the world to the readers mind, whereas Plath uses imagery to describe her mind (her feelings and emotions) to the outside world.