“Counting bells knelling classes to a close.”
This shows that the boy is in pain as knelling usually relates to sadness. Also the only thing that is on his mind is that he is counting the bells. Also, he is sitting in the sick bay. He should be in normal lessons with the other pupils. This shows that there is something wrong. In the first stanza also, it at has an indication of time, which starts to slowly bring a picture into our heads. This is the first indication of time in the poem. In this poem there are a lot of different times:
“At two o’clock our neighbours drove me home.”
This shows the time. Normally we would expect the boy’s parents to come and pick him up from school, but on this occasion they do not. This shows that there is something different about the day and suggests that the parents are busy or have better or more important things to take care of.
In the second stanza it shows straight away why the family are grieving. It tells you slowly what is happening as the boy enters his house and as he enters the house he meets his father in the porch:
“In the porch I met father crying-
He had always taken funerals in his stride-
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.”
Normally a father would not be crying and it is unusual to see a father crying. We find out that there is a funeral taking place, but the boy’s father is used to funerals and does not usually react the way he is doing at other funerals. It says he takes funerals ‘in his stride’. This is obviously an idiom, as he does not take funerals every time he takes a stride. Also, it says ‘And Big Jim Evans saying it was hard blow’ which shows that even someone big is taking it badly. It shows big as Big (with a capital letter) to emphasize the word. It shows that this man is big and still he is heart by the occasion. In the last two lines it starts to show that it was someone close who has died otherwise they would not be taking it so badly.
In the third stanza they boy enters the main room. There is a baby in the room who is making noise and breaking the silence:
“The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram”
This shows that the baby is completely oblivious of what is going on around him and is breaking the silence in the room. The baby sort of indicates that life does go on what ever comes in the way. Also, the poet does not say ‘the baby cooed, laughed and rocked the pram’. This shows that if he wrote it this way then the sound affect of the baby rocking the pram is gone, whereas, because he left it they way it is it indicates the sound of the pram moving. The poet has used words like cooed because these are the kind of noises a baby makes and it makes the reader feel like they are in the room. These words emphasize what the poet is trying to show. The boy is not of a mature age and does not know how to respond to the men who greet him:
“and I was embarrassed by old men standing up to shake my hand”
This shows that the boy does not know how to respond to the men as they give there sympathy and respect by shaking his hand. He feels uncomfortable by this and shows he is not very experienced in life thus he is not that old.
The fourth stanza carries on from the third stanza and shows that he does not know how to respond to the men:
“And tell me they were “were sorry for my trouble,””
This shows the boy does not know how to respond to the men and does not understand properly what is going on. The silence in the poem is broken again in the second line when whispers start to happen. Also, this shows the men do not know how to respond to the boy and probably paused to find the best way of saying it to the boy:
“Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest
Always at school, as my mother held my hand”
This shows how the silence is broken as people inform strangers that the poet is the eldest. This indicates that he is or was not the only child and maybe the person who died was his brother or sister. It shows he does not like to be the oldest as he has a lot of responsibility. What the poet is going through, as a boy is what most people go through as an adult. It shows he is making the transition from being a boy into an adult man. Also it shows that he goes to boarding school as he stays away at school.
Again, stanza five continues from stanza four. In the first line it shows the mother depressing over her son or daughters loss:
“In hers and out angry tearless sighs.”
This shows that she has been crying so much that there is nothing to come out so she is coughing, trying to bring something out. It shows the boy needs to be looked after and is another indication of his age. In the same stanza there is another indication of time:
“At ten o’clock the ambulance arrived
With corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.”
This shows that it was a long day for everyone involved. It shows another movement of time, which is a theme in this poem. The poet makes u think you are there as he explains the mother’s actions and feelings. The indication of time perhaps indicates how the mother spent the afternoon and evening.
Stanza five continues onto stanza six. The poem continues in the same sentence and so makes the time go faster. In this stanza it goes to the next morning when the boy goes to see the corpse:
“Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,”
In stanza five the sentence never finished so the poem carried on from stanza five. This keeps the time together which was deliberately done by the poet, as time is a theme in the poem. It says that snowdrops and candles were next to him. The poet is trying to create a picture in your mind of the body being innocent and just lying there helplessly. It shows purity and it sooths the bedside for the people around him. Also he says he hadn’t seen him for six weeks, this shows that the boy or girl that died went to boarding school also.
Stanza seven tells you how the boy or girl died. There is not much description of the body in this stanza, as you would expect:
“Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple.
He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.”
The only indication of the boy is that he is ‘Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple’. It shows that something so small could kill a child. Other descriptions are in the boy’s room. The poet describes it like the child is not dead but is just sleeping. This is how the family would like to see the boy. The way the poet describes the bruise as being like a poppy is the only metaphor in the poem. In this stanza it shows how the boy was killed and again emphasizes how something so small could kill someone, as there were no big scars on the child. Also the poet describes the box as a cot so therefore shows how the boy was sleeping. This is a shock to the reader.
In the last line of the poem it is on its own like a stanza, but it is a short but powerful line:
“A four foot box, a foot for every year.”
This line is short but it tells you the age of the boy in a powerful way. It is a very dramatic way to end the poem. It tells the age of the boy as being four. One foot for the box indicates one year for the boy. The poet’s use of language in this line is very well done and planned out.
The author’s language in this poem is very powerful and he uses a different approach to make the poem more powerful. The poet tries to make you think you are there and are going through the same thing as the boy is going through. At the start of the poem you look at the title and straight away you think of good things and you think the poem is going to be enjoyable to read, this is ho Seamus Heaney fools you and this shows you that you shouldn’t take things for granted. At the start of the poem the poet puts himself in the boys shoes and describes the poem, as he is the boy. In the poem time is an important theme as it goes over two days. time is linear in the poem. It shows that the boy was too young to know what was going on properly but the adults did not know, straight away how to greet the boy and give their sympathy. This mid-term break was not a normal mid-term break and was a depressing one for the family. Normally you would relate it to relaxing but for the boy’s family, it was it was a time of grieving.
