There are a number of points where the perspective changes in the poem. Heaney puts his position in the poem first and last to show the poem is as much about him as his father and grandfather. He feels equal to his father, unlike in the poem “Follower”. This is because he has chosen his own career path.
In the second stanza, Heaney’s father is introduced into the stanza. It is another adjustment in viewpoint with Heaney bringing his father into the poem, again just like “Follower”. Heaney is in a room; he listens to the sound of his father digging in the garden. This takes him back to his childhood.
Under my window, a clean rasping sound when the spade sinks into the gravely ground. This is alliteration; Heaney is using his skill to show the spade’s sound as he is digging.
“My father, digging. I look down.” The ambiguous meaning is Heaney is looking down from his window. The figurative meaning is that Heaney now looks down on his elderly father now he himself is an adult. Heaney is also showing he has respect for his father, and highlighting that they are both experts at their own separate occupations.
In the third and fourth stanza, Heaney sees his father digging in a flowerbed, and it reminds him of his childhood days when his father used to dig potatoes. He uses these flashbacks as detail in these two stanzas.
“Till his straining rump among the flower beds bends low, comes up twenty years away stooping in rhythm through potato drills where he was digging.”
Heaney again mentions that this brings flashbacks of his boyhood.
In the fourth stanza, Heaney is describing his father’s work using alliteration and assonance. He does this in description to show what his father did. There is another change in heart; this time it shows Heaney shares his father’s love of the land both as a child and at the present.
“The coarse boat nestled on the lug.”
With nestled, Heaney means his father was mighty and strong but now he is elderly, he is cute and cuddly, a shade of his old self. The first two lines in this fourth stanza Seamus Heaney again use technical writing. In this stanza, Heaney is showing the reader that he and his father share their love of the land. “To scatter potatoes that we picked loving there cool hardness in our hands.” This demonstrates that Heaney is using a lot of imagery and alliteration to show he is just as good as his father. He is doing this by showing he is as good at his skill as his father is at his skill.
In the fifth stanza, Heaney’s grandfather is brought into the poem for the first time. The stanza is liking to his father’s job and his grandfathers job and shows the reader how the important skill of occupying his spade links the generation of the family. His admiration is clearly evident. The language of this is full of one-character words and makes the speech sound real and convincing.
“By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man.”
In this stanza, Heaney has gone from admiring his father to admiring his good old grandfather. Heaney is also explaining that the families’ tradition is great and important to him.
In the sixth stanza, Heaney’s grandfather used to cut turf from the bog, which was used for fuel. Heaney is very proud of his grandfather, which he explains in detail.
“My grandfather cut more turf in a day than any other man on Toner’s bog.”
Heaney is showing off about his grandfather, consuming he was the greatest at his job, cutting bog and using it for fuel. Heaney also states;
“Once I carried him in a milk bottle corked sloppily with paper.”
He means that he doesn’t feel up to his grandfather as a child. He felt he was a nuisance and a bit of a failure. He also shows his grandfather is a really hard worker and works just as hard as his father.
In the sixth, seventh and eighth stanzas, Heaney mention childhood memories. He begins to show how he feels about his father’s and grandfather’s career, he uses language that sounds heavy, tiring and hard work, not easy or simple and light. “Nicking and slicing.” This shows the very difficult work of his grandfather and he is also showing the actual sense of digging. Again, Seamus Heaney uses imagery in the seventh stanza.
“The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap of soggy peat.”
Heaney is showing that he does not like the job of farming, yet he once looked up to his father doing the job. Heaney also uses the words “mould” and “squelch” and “slap” to describe the disgusting, dirty jobs of a farmer.
“But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.”
This follows on into the eighth stanza to describe Heaney’s feelings about following on in the tradition of his family. In Eire, if you are a farmer then everyone in your family has to follow in your footsteps, it is the tradition. But Heaney has betrayed this tradition and followed his heart to be a writer. “The squat pen rests.” Heaney is telling the reader he is as good with his pen as his father is at farming and then the last line of the poem “I’ll dig with it” is a repetition of the first stanza.
By Thomas McCance 10M1/PF
