'The Early Purges' by Seamus Heaney focuses on the traumas of childhood, and how impressionable we are when we are young.

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The Early Purges

By Seamus Heaney

'The Early Purges' by Seamus Heaney focuses on the traumas of childhood, and how impressionable we are when we are young. The poem is sad: it is about a child who sees kittens drowning, along with many other animals being killed in various methods on a farm. At the time the child is terrified, but by the end of the poem the fully-grown child is doing all the deeds he was so scared of when he was young. Heaney used many literary techniques to get the feelings and thoughts across effectively, this essay will look at how, and why he did this.

The main theme of the poem is all about how we change when we grow up. There is direct contrast between the first and last lines:

'I was six when I first saw kittens drown'

And the last line;

'On well run farms pests have to be kept down'

The first line connotes a sad boy standing forlornly watching helpless kittens drown. The last line is about the same person but by the time he has grown up he is saying almost the exact opposite.