Analysis of Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney. Themes, language and structures

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Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney

Story.
In the childhood world of Blackberry-Picking, it is late August. If conditions are ripe, if there is "heavy ran and sun", the "blackberries... ripen". The first bite is addictive, and the children gather containers together and pick blackberries, enough to fill a bath. But they cannot eat them all, and "the fruit ferments". Every year the pattern repeats, they always gather too much.

Structure
The poem is divided into two parts, the first longer, describing the gathering of the blackberries, and their consumption, and the second about half that length, the ruin of the remainder. The line length is much greater than in the later poems, but Heaney makes an almost prose-like grammatical structure in Blackberry-Picking. Heaney quite often uses rhyme - "clot... knot", and near-rhyme, "sweet... in it", but without making it intrusive.

Language
The words, densely packed, peppered liberally with verbs and adjectives, establish the tone. It is intentionally almost too rich. The poem becomes repetitive in its unrelenting linguistic intensity. However, the poet is careful to balance a lot of deep phrases with words that more than hint at a darker side to the bounty of blackberries.

Diction
Heaney makes little use of any pronoun in the first part of the poem. There is a reference to "you", used in an impersonal manner - "you ate the first one... ", and a reference to "we" and "our". It is, however, the blackberries that are allowed to dominate this part of the poem. The second part allows the speaker and his unnamed companions to interrupt upon the rich nature of the blackberries. However, all their emotions are involved in the "lovely canfuls".

Tone
The "lust" for blackberries is a blood lust. Their "flesh is sweet", like "blood". The children are willing to suffer a great deal of pain to satisfy "that hunger". Then Heaney's tone becomes decidedly ominous - the blackberries are "like a plate of eyes", their palms are stained with the juice, as "Bluebeard's" were stained with blood.

The final part of the poem is an isolated relation of the half-innocent greed of the blackberry-pickers, and their horror and jealousy at their prize's ruin. They "hoard" the blackberries in the way that the "rat-grey fungus... gluts" on it. It continues in the irritable tone of an upset child - "It wasn't fair/That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot" and concludes in a more distant, grave, accepting tone, revealing that even the child knew the berries would not "keep".

Mood
The rhythm and language of the poem leads to an indulgent, but slightly oppressive mood, as if the reader is immersed in the "heavy rain and sun" of "late August". The desire for the blackberries is half-sickening, a hunger that is more in the mind than in the stomach drives the pickers. They are possessive and greedy, picking even the unripe "green ones", filling a "bath". The disgust at the "rat-grey fungus" is half horror and half envy. How dare it destroy the "sweet flesh"? The child is desperate for more, each year he yearns for more blackberries, though he knows their fate.

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Poetic Devices
Heaney makes extensive use of poetic devices in Blackberry-Picking. Examples of his alliteration include "first... flesh", "peppered... pricks... palms", "berries... byre", "fur... fungus", "fruit fermented... flesh" and "sweet... sour". Heaney also uses a vocabulary rich with varying sounds, so that saying the poem is rather like eating the blackberries, it is "like thickened wine". Similar sounding words are used frequently; "milk-cans, pea-tins, jampots", "hayfields, cornfields", "trekked and picked", "fungus, glutting", meaning that the poem must be read slowly to enjoy its deep rhythm.

Imagery
There are three primary images in Blackberry-Picking. There are the child blackberry-pickers, carrying "milk-cans, pea-tins, jam-pots", ...

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