Also, the presence of the little boy, as he moves about in the henhouse, stirs the dust.
-…scraps she put through your trapdoor morning and evening.
The mother practically posted her child's food to him without looking at him face-to-face. This causes certain sympathy for the little boy. His own mother is treating him like an animal, what is expected of others? In a sense, Haney portrays that Christianity has driven the mother to act in this way. He asks the question, is Christianity about love and forgiveness or hate and deceit?
-..unchristened
Seeing as the child is illegitimate, he has not been christened.
-..you speak at last with a remote mime…
The child does not know how to speak as he has had nobody to teach him how to talk and thus he mimes. However, his
describes of
- ..lunar distances traveled beyond love.
The boy has been discovered, and the audience sympathise with the child, but very rarely, if not at all, with the mother. Heaney directs us to believe that Christianity, or what people believe to be Christianity has led her to behave the way she has.
Heaney uses animal imagery to describe the child, with continuous reference to the moon.
“Westering” is about Heaney’s attempt to get away from the troubles of Northern Ireland by going to California, but soon realizes that his problems follow him.
- I sit under Rand McNally’s ‘Official Map of the Moon’…
Rand McNally’s is the Irish pub in which Heaney sits. The ‘Official
Map Of the Moon’ is a poster that Heaney is looking at. This is obviously Irish humour as no map of the moon has yet been made.
Even as Heaney is sitting in America his thoughts go back to Northern Ireland.
- ..Recalling the last night in Donegal, my shadow neat upon
the whitewash from her bony shine..
Here, he remembers his shadow on the outside of the whitewash cottage, where he was staying. Once again, he refers to the moon,
-..her bony shine..
as this was one of the last things he saw in Northern Ireland.
He goes to talk about the place in America where he is giving his lectures.
-..the empty amphitheatre of the west.
The theatre is very similar to his wife. It is unpredictable and new. Through the summer, Heaney winded down and enjoyed himself, trying to forget Ireland problems, but they have followed him to America. There is no getting away from them.
- We drove by, a dwindling interruption, as clappers smacked on
a bare altar…
We realize that he left Ireland on Good Friday, and as he drove by, people were in church. There was a silence in respect of Good Friday, and his car made a slight noise as he drove by.
Clappers were used instead of bells, to dumb down the noise.
- ..And congregations bent to the studded crucifix.
As the crucifix is being kissed, Heaney feels free, as though the burden has been lifted.
- Roads unreeled, unreeled falling light as casts laid down
on shining waters.
He repeats ‘unreeled’ to emphasise on the length of the road. As he drives away from his troubles, he feels light and free, as though casting a net on the water. He contrasts fishing to unreeled casts. Also, he compares it with religion, as Jesus’s decipals were fishermen.
- Under the moon’s stigmata six thousand miles away, I
Imagine untroubled dust, a loosening gravity, Christ weighing by his hand.
He replaces Christ with the moon, applying a stigmata to it. Even as he is no longer in Northern Ireland, he can imagine everything sorting itself out. For Heaney, the moon is the symbol of Mother Ireland and no longer Christianity.
As California has very few troubles, he imagines it as a perfect Ireland. He imagines Christianity being practiced properly, but replaces Christ with the moon.
In a sense, the dispute over religion has driven Heaney out of Ireland. Christianity causes him to leave his mother land.
In “Limbo”, Heaney deals with another illegitimate child. However, unlike “Bye-Child”, the child does not live.
- Fishermen at Ballyshannon netted an infant last night
Along with the salmon.
A child was netted out with the fish, as though it is not human, as though it was just thrown away.
- ..I’m sure as she stood in the shallows ducking him tenderly
till the frozen knobs of her wrists were dead as the gravel, He
was a minnow with hooks tearing her open.
She does not just throw him in violently, she ducks him tenderly. She obviously did not want to kill her child, but it was
- An illegitimate spawning..
She ducked him in and out of the water to check whether her child was still alive. She did not just stick its head underneath the water. The child was
- a minnow with hooks tearing her open.
It was complete and utter agony killing her child, something that would stay with her for the rest of her life.
- She waded in under the sign of her cross.
Her child was illegitimate, and in a sense, by wading in under her cross, she was attempting to baptize it.
- Now limbo will be a cold glitter of souls through some
Far briny zone.
Limbo was somewhere, where children who were not baptized went when they died. It was not quiet Heaven and not quiet Hell. It is as though Christianity is telling her to kill her baby. It is illegitimate and the only way out of it is to kill her child.
- Even Christ’s palms, unhealed, smart and cannot fish there.
This is beyond even Christ. The water is salty and will only sting his wounds. This is not Christianity and not thee way it is practiced. People have developed their own rules. Once again, through the poem Heaney asks, is Christianity about love and forgiveness or hate?
Lastly, in “The Tollund Man”, Heaney deals with the past and history of religions, focusing on the pagan religion.
- Some day I will go to Aarhus to see his peat-brown head..
Aarhus is the place where the Tollund Man was found and Heaney
Plans on going there one day. His head has turned brown, like a thick leather.
-..the flat country near by where they dug him out…
They found his body in a peat. His body had been preserved by the Tannic Acid in the bog, which created a thick brown layer in place of his skin.
- His last gruel of winter seeds caked in his stomach..
They were even able to tell what the last thing he ate was.
- The cap, noose and girdle..
He talks about how the Tollund Man was executed. We find out that he was a sacrifice to the Mother Ground.
- Bridegroom to the goddess, she tightened her torc on him
And opened her fen
He uses sexual imagery to create a clearer picture to the reader. He was a sacrifice to the ground. This ensured fertility.
- Those dark juices working Him to a saint’s kept body…
Here he talks about the Tannic Acid which preserved his body.
Heaney substitutes the Tollund Man for the patron saint of Northern Ireland. In a sense he is tired of Christianity and can no longer deal with the problems that come with it, and is thus looking towards other religions.
In conclusion, Heaney uses the moon as a new found symbol and replaces Mother Ireland with it. Because of all the conflict in Northern Ireland over religion, Heaney is trying to get away from Christianity. Also, Christianity, is forcing others to make very horrific decisions, which Heaney, himself does not want to go through. Christianity has developed a lot over the past hundred years or so, but the fact that people are interpretating it in their own versions is what has driven Heaney away from Christianity.
The language he uses is mostly referred to the moon, and Christ’s wounds are mentioned a great deal. He compares the two, showing that his new found symbol is more dominant and pushes Christianity to one side.
