“My father, digging. I look down.”
Here we see how as Heaney is sitting down to write by his window he is reminded of how he would look out the window and see his father digging the potatoes which had to be collected by the children. He describes the children collecting the potatoes.
“Loving their cool hardness in our hands.”
Heaney is remembering the feeling of the potatoes from when he picked them up for his father. By using the image of digging he can explain how, by looking through his past, he is able to unearth his roots and to discover who he really is. Heaney uses words which reproduce the sounds. This is because he is reliving memories.
“Gravelly.”
This onomatopoeia shows how Heaney is remembering the sounds from his past. The poem also shows admiration for his father and how he dug so well.
“By God, the old man could handle a spade.”
This shows how Heaney looked up to his father. Heaney also mentions how his grandfather was a great digger too.
“My grandfather cut more turf in a day.”
This poem is showing how digging has been done for generations in Heaney’s family. But Heaney couldn’t dig like them.
“But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.”
He feels like he is a disappointment to his father and family, and he feels disappointment in himself too. Heaney still does dig though, but in a different way. He digs with words.
‘Follower’ is similar to ‘Digging’ in a lot of ways because Heaney is again using childhood memories to show the admiration for his father. Heaney describes, with some admiration, his father’s skill in working the horse-drawn plough.
“The sod rolled over without breaking.”
This shows how he remembers his father’s expertise in ploughing. This poem is written in the same way as ‘Digging’ because both show how Heaney’s heritage plays a key focus in his poetry. ‘Follower’ also shows the strength of Heaney’s father.
“With a single pluck.”
This shows how his father doesn’t struggle, which is the mark of an expert. He also describes his father’s power and strength.
“Broad shadow.”
The broadness of his shoulders is showing his power and strength. ‘Follower’ unlike ‘Digging’ tells the reader how Heaney followed his father around the farm.
“I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, Yapping always.”
This shows how he was no help to his father, but he enjoyed being there. Heaney uses assonance in that line by repeating the ‘ing’ sound; this shows us the childishness of his memory. At the end of the poem Heaney comes into the present.
“But today It is my father who keeps stumbling Behind me, and will not go away.”
This shows how Heaney’s father has become the follower now.
In ‘Death of a Naturalist’ Heaney is also using his childhood memories as in ‘Digging’ and ‘Follower’ but this time in a different way. They are used to show his love for nature and wildlife. Heaney doesn’t mention his heritage in this poem, instead he is focusing on his rural background and how he was brought up in the Irish countryside and on a farm. ‘Digging’ and ‘Follower’ do show how his background was rural but they are not using that as there main focus point. ‘Death of a Naturalist’ is about the end of his love for nature and the end of him being a naturalist. Heaney uses lots of nature-related words such as:
“Flax-dam.”
“Sods.”
The use of these words show how he was brought up in a rural background. This poem is written in quiet a childish way. We can tell this from the language he uses, as the words are descriptive but childish.
“Bubbles gargled delicately.”
The word gargled is a childish word but it is very effective in this poem and really makes the reader hear the sound and see the bubbles ‘gargling’. The language in lines 16-19 represent the childish way the teacher spoke to the class.