In SOTI, it says that the waves “pummeled” the house, in comparison to TMF where the scene is set in the civil war in Bosnia; the surrounding building would have been “peppered” with bullet holes and damage from artillery fire.
On topic of danger I found many points in all three poems that link to each other and contrast each other. In TFM on line 16, the fields are “hurt”, the danger of a battlefield, death, destruction and dehumanization, to compare this I found that on line 27 of DOAN, the word “cocked” gives the sense that the frogs are like guns, ready to shoot and kill. In SOTI, on line 15 and 16, the sentence “like a tame cat turned wild” gives us the sense of danger of things that can usually be trusted or are usually safe, but this time there not. On line 26 to 27 of TFM, the sentence “my neighbour turned stranger” gives us the sense that the local people have fear of the danger that lies behind each person’s door. In line 27 on DOAN, Heaney describes the frogs as “obscene threats”, this gives the reader a sense of danger and contrasts the other poems in that the whole world is seen as a threat and the human race is a threat.
The frogs in Death of a Naturalist are described as “coarse…gross-bellied…gathered for vengeance” all these words pick out the sense of danger that the reader can feel, in comparison to this, I found that in The Field Mouse, there are several similar links to the two poems, between the language usage and the way in which it is portrayed.
In the three poems, all five senses are engaged; touch, sight, smell, taste and sound.
All of these are mentioned in each of the poems. For example, in SOTI, the sense of touch is used when Heaney says that the wind “pummels” the house, in contrast to this, line 5 in DOAN, says that the bubbles “gargled”, again the sound of the natural environment is portrayed. Heaney used a lot of euphemism in his work to make the poem feel alive and have a rhythm to it.
The sense of sight Is applied in the DOAN poem on line 7, Heaney not only states that there are butterflies and dragonflies, but they are “spotted”, this adds to the sense of what we think they look like, making us think about it. In contrast to this, in SOTI on lines 7 and 8, the wind is said to make “leaves and branches…raise a tragic chorus”, not only does this give us the sense of sight; it also gives the sense of sound. In TFM, I found that the sound of “jets” are in the air, not only is this the threat of war, but also the sense of sound, it’s the particular sounds of the jets that make “the air hum”. Another comparison in the poem is on line 4, where “the radio’s terrible news” brings the threat of war closer to home and also engages the sense of sound in the poem.
In DOAN, the sense of touch is applied to the feel of the frogspawn, Heaney describes it is “like clotted water”, making it feel dense and sloppy or thick in texture.
Several points which I found had similarities were from all three poems, death of a naturalist has a time shift and so does the field mouse, in DOAN, the poem goes from the first verse as Heaney when he was in primary school using childish language. While in the second verse, he talks in a more grown up tone and language, but still occasionally looks back to his childhood and uses non poetic language, the poem goes from when he was a lad in school to where he is now in the present as an adult.
In TFM the poem starts off with the radio talking about the breakout of war, towards the end of the poem we hear that the war is coming to an end and that the fighting has stopped but the damage done cant be turned around.
The changes that go on throughout the series of poems vary from a natural change to a physical change, the natural changes link in with the physical changes, for example the frogspawn in DOAN growing to become tadpoles (physical and natural) and then fully grown frogs, I noticed that a change also occurred in the same poem, but about the Heaney, as he goes from a young child at the start to a fully grown adult to the end, just like the frog and the tadpoles. I linked this with the other poem ‘The Field Mouse’, as the children during the war grew up with it at the start of the poem, but at the end of the poem, the end of the war is near and the children are scarred to grow up with the memory of the war. So when they are older, they will still remember what had happened, just like Heaney remembered the teacher telling him about the “mammy frog… and the daddy frog”.