How does seamus heaney reveal his culture in poems "Digging" and "follower"

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How does Seamus Heaney reveal his culture in ‘Digging’ and ‘Follower’?

Seamus Heaney was born in Northern Ireland in 1939 to a working class family. Being the eldest of nine siblings wasn’t easy yet Heaney’s intelligence was highlighted when he won a scholarship to a catholic school at the tender age of twelve. He had an agricultural background and was raised on the family farm where he stood proud of his hard working ancestors and their skills.

    After studying Heaney’s first pair of poems ‘Digging’ and ‘Follower’ I can especially relate to the strong family values Heaney displays, yet an important part of the Irish tradition is for a father to pass on his business or trade down to the eldest son. We see how Heaney would feel pressurised; indeed he would have a lot to live up to judging by that exposed in his poetry. It is well known that most Irishmen are working class and Ireland has a very strong pub culture; from this fact stems many stereotypes. Through his poetry Heaney attempts to challenge the discrimination that is regularly shown towards Irish farmers. We see even today many frequently told jokes involve the Irish man as the fool; it’s the Irish farmer that is especially misinterpreted, yet Heaney gives us a fair insight into the life of his family and their farming profession; he tells readers of the immense skill needed to farm well and the capability of an Irish farmer. He is therefore challenging the tradition yet damaging the stereotype.

    Firstly we see how ‘Digging’ has both a metaphorical and literal meaning to it. The literal meaning is that his father and grandfather are farmers, the poem talks about his family ‘Digging’ and working on the farm. Onwards from this the metaphorical meaning is that Seamus Heaney himself is ‘Digging’ into his past and background, which indeed is farming. Hence the title is rather effective. ‘Digging’ is about Heaney breaking away from the family tradition and becoming a poet thus it is written in an untraditional way. In ‘Digging’ Heaney begins his poem in the present tense he is describing what he is doing and his surroundings at the time of writing before he takes a step back in time, reminiscing and evaluating his thought process as his memories link causing him to remember the past and the skills of his father and grandfather. He is sat by his window to write the poem and therefore fulfilling his passion as a poet; he describes seeing his elderly father straining amongst the flowerbeds, then goes into the past and reminisces again about his father and how he would farm so well. He writes of the times when he and his father would work together picking potatoes on the farm. Further on Heaney delves deeper into his family history, he moves on from his father and begins to speak of his grandfather linking the two together via their epic skills. He writes

“By God, the old man could handle a spade

Just like his old man.”

Heaney uses his chain of thoughts in a very orderly way and describes the potato picking days from his past, he goes into detail about how the potatoes smelt and the sound of the ‘soggy peat’. He then ends with a stanza much like his first, yet within this stanza we see how he realises that his tool is not that of a farmer but is a pen and his skill is to write. The final line, however, is set in the future tense to emphasise Heaney’s determination – “I’ll dig with it.”

    In contrast ‘Follower’ is a very different poem. Here, Seamus Heaney writes about his days on the farm from the perspective of being a young boy. He sees his father working on a horse and plough as he recollects upon how he looked up to his father and saw him as a great role-model, indeed, as a child Heaney himself wanted to become a farmer. Thus the poem is, unlike ‘Digging’ written in a traditional way. Following in his fathers footsteps and traipsing around the farm Heaney would make a nuisance of himself. The poem is ended with a twist as Heaney states that the tables have turned as considering the present Seamus Heaney feels his father is stumbling behind him. This is reflected when he states:

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“It is my father who keeps stumbling

Behind me and will not go away.”

Like the general theme in ‘Digging’ these two lines have both a literal and metaphorical meaning, the literal is that his father is now and old man and is physically stumbling behind him and becoming a nuisance. The hidden metaphorical meaning is one that highlights the shame he feels, the way in which his father is ‘stumbling’ behind him reflects how the memories of breaking the family tradition haunt him still and how his father is now a burden through the regret he feels.

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