‘The Tollund Man’, expresses Heaney’s original gender representations, where the female is portrayed as the dominant being, and her possession is the man. As a result of fear, this poem shows how a fear of women has repressed men into submission. The poem works to justify this theory through a representation of a dominant woman and an introverted male figure. Firstly, the domination of the female over the exhumed male in the poem is presented in part one, stanza four:
“She tightened her torc on him
And opened her fen,
Those dark juices working
Him to a saints kept body,”
This stanza directly follows the last line in stanza two, which helps to create a further image of female power and male submission. The reader can see this, as the male corpse is expressed as “Bridegroom to the goddess,”. This empowers the image of women as she is referred to as a goddess. The likening of women to a goddess is a particularly important idea in explaining Heaney’s definition of dominant females, as it relates to the associations made to women at the time. It relates to the power and energy of Celtic mythological heroines, together with the nineteenth Century devotion to the mother of god. These worked to produce the most violent misogamy amongst men. Men felt inferior to such powerful beings, and likened all women to having the potential to be immortal as mythological heroines, or like Mary, the mother of God. In ‘The Tollund Man’, religious references are made in part two, stanza one, where it states:
“I could risk blasphemy,
Consecrate the cauldron bog
Our holy ground and pray
Him to make germinate”
The religious instances of part two are particularly important in the construction of women in terms of power and possession as it reinforces the fears produced by men, by likening women to the mythological goddess in part one, and here, a representation of religious sacrament, or mother Mary, in part two. Mary’s role as the embodiment of maternity reinforces a biological instance on a woman’s function as reproducer.
Adoration of her paradoxical virginity masks a hatred of the unclean female body and denial of female desire. This belief is what drives the poem to function as a representation of the imagery of woman that drove men to misogamy. The hatred of ‘unclean’ women, teamed with the imagery of the ‘goddess’ raping a corpse in order to ensure the renewal and fertility of the territory. It depicts the idea that the goddess seduces ‘bridegrooms’ to satisfy her female desire and her biological instance to reproduce. This imagery shows that women are portrayed as the dominant sex particularly to the male inclination to fear them. However, this religious reference also likens the bog to that of a Holy place “Our holy ground and pray”. This only reinforces the idea that the goddess, likened to Mary – mother of god, lures men into her territory for her own pleasure and for reproduction. The erotic aspects of the goddess are tied to her generative needs.
As well as the poem functioning to illuminate the dominance of the female figure, it also works to represent the suppressed male figure. It does this, by representing the Tollund man as a lover and husband who fertilizes the land and impregnates the goddess with seed for the nest seasons crop, by identifying him as “Bridegroom to the Goddess”. He is also repressed, as he was sacrificed of his life, and even through death he is used, and dominated, by a woman. He is repressed by the erotic absorption and incorporation by a female energy, which also reveals an intense alienation from the female.
The relevance of “Him to a saints kept body”, at the end of the fourth stanza is important, as it shows the innocence of the masculine figure. As the figure was preserved in the peat, the imagery hints the reader to imagine a saintly, and innocent looking body, which then functions to contrast to the way that the fertility goddess is taking advantage of him.
The use of irony in the poem also helps to create this sense of legacy toward the male ‘victim’. The corpses freedom through death is expressed in part three, however the reader understands that this cannot be so, as reference to part one indicates that even after death he was still subject to a form of torture and humiliation.
“Something of his sad freedom
As he rode the tumbrel
Should come to me, driving,
Saying the names”
‘Act of Union’, part of the North collection is a poem, like ‘The Tollund Man’, represents the power struggle between masculinity and femininity. In ‘Act of Union’, the dominant masculine figure is directly represented in the first stanza: “I am the tall kingdom over your shoulder”. Here, the persona establishes himself as the dominating icon in the poem. This is reinforced two lines down, by reflecting the controlled and repressed nature of the later identified female. “Conceding your half independent shore”. This mark of only partial independence reflects a symbol of possession. In this poem, the masculine figure is dominant, and therefore takes possession of the female. This figure is established as a male subject in stanza two, after the intercourse has taken place. The first line of the stanza; “And I am still imperially Male”, constructs the figure as masculine. Also, the use of the word ‘imperially’ followed by the capitalized ‘Male’ also indicates a sense of power and ‘royalty’ and therefore also works to subvert the female independence.
The idea of the dominant and possessive male functions well in the poem, as it is supported by images of a suppressed and possessed woman. The primary example of this is the function of the analogies between a woman’s body and the Irish landscape. This works with the reader’s knowledge relating to contextual understandings of the value of the Irish landscape and the struggles between England and Ireland. In the poem, the Irish landscape is personified as the woman, being repossessed and controlled by a dominating male, who can be seen as a representation of England. The main purpose of these analogies is that by using the reader’s knowledge of England’s domination of Ireland during the 1970’s, the gender representations can be understood.
Although the male domination in this poem is clear and evident, it is also important to understand however, that this domination is not credited through the rape of the female. There is in fact evidence in the poem that the persona cares about the female subject.
“Beyond your gradual hills. I caress”. This quotation is important as it rids any sense of domination through violence that might be associated with male domination of a female. The caesura before “I caress” helps the reader place extra pronunciation and therefore extra attention on this phrase.
Politically, land is seen as an object to be possessed and repossessed, particularly in relation to the troubles in England and Ireland. In the poem, the woman is being ‘controlled’ and ‘consumed’ by, or incorporated into the male during intercourse, as Northern Ireland was incorporated into England, after its domination and control by the British. “Your back is a firm line of eastern coast”. This quotation represents the female back as an obstacle, similar to the east coast of Ireland, and once overcome, the consumption and possession will commence. This imagery is carried all through the first part of the poem, such as “Beyond your gradual hills” referring to the woman’s breasts and hips. To gender the land as female, is to confirm and reproduce the social arrangements which construct woman as material possessions.
The representations of both masculine and feminine qualities, explored in “The Tollund Man” and “Act of Union” unify Heaney’s contrasting definitions of masculinity and femininity as the power and shifts from female to male possession as his poetry develops. These two poems, from North and Wintering Out, show that representations of femininity and masculinity on literature can be seen in terms of contests for power and possession. This is due to the fact that in both definitions, there is a different gender contending for power. This is possibly clarified even more, in “the Tollund Man”, where the main idea is the woman or ‘fertility goddess’ in power; however there are underlining suggestions of overall male control of politics and on a nation-wide scale. This poem however, portrays the image of a dominating woman, which satisfies Heaney’s early imagery of gender roles: ‘a woman who dooms, destroys, puzzles and encompasses the man’. “Act of Union”, however, satisfies Heany’s latter imagery of ‘an unequivocally dominant masculine figure, who explores, describes, and brings to pleasure and compassionates a passive feminine one’. The contrasting definitions in and within these two poems represent contests for power and possession that are often represented in terms of gender. “Act of Union”, constructs a woman in terms of analogies to Ireland, where she is represented as an item to be controlled, and incorporated in order for produce; much like when England controlled Northern Ireland, and incorporated it into British perimeters. The land is personified to compare political conquest with acts of sexual possession. “Tolland Man” also, focuses on the representation of the female icon, however this time she ‘has possession of the male’, and is incorporating him into herself to fertilise the land. The poem reveals an intense alienation from the female, and constructs a sense of fear from this woman as the Irish men would have seen her. These ideas are further constructed trough religious and Celtic mythology images, likening her to ‘Mother Mary’, or a ‘goddess’. The setting of this poem is also important, as it presents the bog as not only a place of execution and necrophilia, but also as a place of marriage and union. The two poems work to present different dominant genders through their representations due to imagery and contextual information within the poem. These poems work together to show that representations of masculinity and femininity in literature may be seen in terms of contest for power and possession.
*2137 words*
“The poetry of Seamus Heaney ” (Gender, colonialism, nationalism); edited by Elmer Andres – Pg 120
,3 “The poetry of Seamus Heaney ” (Gender, colonialism, nationalism); edited by Elmer Andres – Pg 128
* “Seamus Heaney – New Selected Poems 1866-1987”; Faber and Faber, London, 1990
** “The oxford English Dictionary” C.T. Onions, 1983, Oxford University Press