How do the words in "Follower" and "Digging" show what country life is like and how effective are the images produced?

Furthermore, the speaker uses determined diction to stress that skills are involved in country life and their development over time is like a growing process to get to that stage as being skillful in the first place:

“An expert…. The sod rolled over without breaking…exactly…”

The speaker describes his father as an ‘expert’ and ‘without breaking’.  They show how accomplished his father is as a ploughman and help us to understand that working on a farm is indeed very difficult.  The image of the freshly ploughed soil perfectly formed adds to the readers’ perception of the countryside as a beautiful place because of his father’s pride in work.  The word ‘exactly’ indicates how things need to be accurate.  Therefore the determined diction illustrates how much skill is required for such a simple task as ploughing a field.  It portrays one’s determination to master skills, which are needed to work on land and how much effort is need to learn a skill in the first place.  

In “Digging”, the speaker also emphasizes the skills that are required for living in the country life using skillful farming imagery:

“My father, digging…levered firmly…By God, the old man could handle a spade…his straining rump…Potato drills…”

The speaker suggests that his father has great skills when it comes to digging.  It indicates to the reader that country life is strenuous and much effort is required to dig properly.  They also give us an image that the man is not only digging, but also doing it with immense skill; working on the land is difficult job, which requires a lot of will power to stay at.  The image of orderly potato plants suggests that working on land is very systematic and this goes perfectly with the ploughed soil image in ‘Follower’.  Things have to be accurate and firm and decisions have to be made wisely without hesitation.  This is related to the word, ‘exactly’ in ‘Follower’, they both illustrate that working on land has to be accurate and systematic.  The spade is described as ‘lug’ and ‘shaft’; these words imply a certain degree of skill for the digging job.  Here we can see the similarity with ‘Follower’, because of the technical terms used to emphasize that working on land as a difficult and skilled profession.

Finally, in ‘Digging’, the speaker uses the repetition of ‘ow’ sound to create aural imagery to express the bonds between people as an aspect of country life:

“grow up and plough……follow in his broad shadow”

The repetition of the ‘ow’ sound repeatedly refer the role of the people and the sound produces a soft, elongated tempo which represent the long process of growing.  It suggests that the speaker wants to grow up and plough like his father, so we can extract from this that country life can be fun at times.  The speaker respects and admires his father and it is a broad image of being larger than life following his shadow.  One can also interpret that the speaker’s admiration toward his father is because of his determination in work, mastering a skill, teamwork with the horse and his pride in work.  Besides, the speaker also emphasizes that family business is passed on from generation to generation because of its success:

“the old man could handle a spade….just like his old man”

It displays the continuation of farming from the speaker’s grandfather to his father.  It demonstrates that country life is very family-orientated and professions are often carried down from father to son.  The image of the speaker’s father being taught how to dig by his father is very powerful and effective, because it highlights the strong bonds between people on a farm and in country life generally.

In both ‘Follower’ and ‘Digging’, the speaker uses diction to convey the relationship between the father and the son and the hard work involved in running a farm.  He also explores its harmony, mastering a skill, respect for family and the importance of people and value.   The words in both poems give us an idea that country life is hard and require great skill to work effectively on a farm.  These poems describe eloquently the people who work on the land and they provide reader with an insight into what qualities you must have to work on a farm through rich and effective imagery created by the words.