“My father worked with a horse plough
His shoulders globed like a full sail strung”
These two lines are especially effective because of the way Heaney gets a specific image of his tall father standing above him. This describes the machinery used on the farm, and when you hear the second line you see a mental picture of his giant father towering over Shamus Heaney. The second line also uses symbolism well; he thinks of his father as all powerful and refers to him as the world. In both poems Heaney uses Imagery and Symbolism to convey his admiration and respect for his father.
In “digging” and “follower” Heaney conveys a powerful sense of respect for his father’s control and power. He this in both poems extremely well;
“Al I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm”
This shows how he wants to grow up and be like his father and carry on his family’s legacy, but deep down in his heart he feels that he’ll never be able to live up to his father. Heaney gets this across particularly well in the eighth stanza of the poem “digging”;
“Through living roots awaken in my head
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them”
This is near the end of the poem but compared to the middle stanzas of the poem that have a lot of belief and respect, These to lines however seem to express his sadness because of the fact he will not be able to carry on his family’s tradition and roots. But despite this Shamus Heaney shows that he will try and carry on his family’s tradition through writing his poetry because in his heart he feels as if he will never be as good at digging as his father and grandfather so this will be Heaneys way of carrying on their tradition.
“Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests
I’ll dig with it.”
This shows that Heaney would have liked to be a farmer himself but as he never had the skills or talent to do it, he had to try and follow the tradition in his own way with his own talent. This talent is Heaney’s poetry.
In “follower” and “digging” Shamus Heaney expresses his feeling and memories of how his family didn’t get a break at the job and how over time they developed a certain expertise for that particular job. The first line of the third stanza in digging is a good example of this because, it uses descriptive words to show the strain on his father.
“His straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up”
This shows how his work is hard and is not as easy as others may think. The rhyming schemes and the continuation of one line to the other. The number of syllables in each stanza in follower shows a distinct rhythm to the ploughing and the constant grind of his father’s work.
In conclusion Heaney’s poems show good use of symbolism, memories of his family and especially an overwhelming sense of imagery. All of these combined make Heaney’s poetry especially interesting and in his poetry he puts across his own personality.
By Alex Paveley 10CG
