Comparing Mid Term Break by Seamus Heaney and The Lesson by Edward Lucie-Smith

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Comparing “Mid Term Break” by Seamus Heaney and “The Lesson” by Edward Lucie-Smith

The poems Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney and The Lesson by Edward Lucie-Smith are autobiographical poems showing deaths of relatives through the perspective of young boys. In Mid-Term Break it is the younger brother who dies; in The Lesson it is the boy’s father. Each of the boys were away at boarding school when they were told of the deaths, and the poems describe the emotions they felt at the time and how they try to cope with the trauma of their losses.

The boy in Mid-Term Break demonstrates maturity, yet still does not fully comprehend the situation. He does not understand why his father is crying as ‘he had always taken funerals in his stride’. This strengthens the gloom of the poem as it indicates the extent of his fathers despair. He feels embarrassed when he receives attention from the ‘old men’ that come up to shake his hand and say they are ‘sorry for my trouble’, showing how he does not comprehend the situation. On the other hand, in The Lesson the boy relishes in the attention he receives, ‘All the other eyes were turned towards me’. This gives the reader a childlike perception of the boy, as like a small child he craves the attention of those around him.

In the third stanza of Mid-Term Break, the poem takes a different route by showing the innocence of the baby. ‘The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram’. This is lighthearted, whereas the previous two stanzas have been dark. The line uses a triplet of three verbs to show the innocence of the baby, yet this only heightens the intense sadness of the poem. Whereas Mid-Term Break is very monotonous, showing only the deepest levels of despair, Edward Lucie-Smith’s The Lesson shows a range of different emotions. In Mid-Term Break it is not revealed at first that it is the younger brother who has died, the reader has to find this out from small clues in the poem. However in The Lesson it goes straight to the point by saying his father has died in the first line. In the first stanza is the line ‘Splintered at once in tears’. This suggests that the boy is crying as his vision is splintering. Edward Lucie-Smith uses the word ‘splintered’, as once something is splintered is cannot be repaired, referring to how his father cannot be replaced. There is a caesura in the line, which further says that his father has been taken suddenly, and at the wrong time.

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The second stanza of The Lesson represents the boy as a goldfish, ‘Around their shining prison on its shelf.’ It symbolises a metaphor, about how he preens himself like a goldfish, putting himself on show.  He feels safe and secure, able to show himself off without having to hide from the bullies. His father’s death protects him like the glass bowl protects a goldfish. The final line says ‘Pride like a goldfish flashed a sudden fin.’ This demonstrates the pride he feels.

The Lesson is more vociferous in its meaning and disrespectful for the deceased, the boy ...

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