In his poems 'Follower and Digging' Heaney is thinking about his father. How do these two poems give you different ideas about his relationship with his father?

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In his poems ‘Follower and Digging’ Heaney is thinking about his father. How do these two poems give you different ideas about his relationship with his father?

Rachel Burrow

In the two poems, ‘Digging’ and ‘Follower’, Seamus Heaney writes about growing up on his father’s farm, in County Derry, in Ireland. I am going to compare and contrast, remembered and present day, feelings Heaney has about his relationship with his father. The poem ‘Follower’ tells us about Heaney’s admiration for his father and how he wants to grow up to plough just like him. He observes how his father tends to the farm, but how Heaney is never allowed to do much. He cannot wait for the day when he is old enough to work the farm, in the skilled way he has watched his father do. At the end of ‘Follower,’ Heaney explains how his relationship with his father has changed.

        As Heaney grows up, the poem ‘Digging,’ describes how Heaney’s attitude has changed. When he was a child, he admired and wanted to be just like his father. Now he wants to be a poet and go his own way. He does not want to follow the same path as men generations before him, although he feels farming is just as important.

        The poem ‘Follower’, describes to us Heaney’s perspective as a child. He compares his view of his father with a mighty boat. ‘His shoulders globed like a full sail strung,’ makes us imagine his father’s appearance is as big as a large sailing ship. The simile tells the reader about the power of his father and how Heaney admired his father physically. This tells the reader about the effort involved in ploughing, and describes how big and strong his father’s shoulders were. This creates a very vivid picture of a small child’s awe of looking at something so magnificent.

        Another example of Heaney’s admiration for his father is how he is in control, ‘the horses strained at his clicking tongue.’ This tells the reader how the big horses worked harder at the father’s command, and did what he wanted. ‘With a single pluck,’ this tells the reader that even though the father used minimum effort to direct the horses, he was always in control. This also expresses that Heaney views his father as, ‘an expert.’ The emphasis of this short sentence simply shows how much the poet admires his father’s competence as a farmer. The way the father skilfully cuts the bottom of the furrow and turns the soil, ‘set the wing, and fit the bright steel -pointed sock.’ This tells the reader how he ploughs in exactly the right position as if it should fit there. Also the use of the technical terms for the plough shows that the father was a specialist.

        The metaphor ‘mapping the furrow exactly,’ describes the father as a perfectionist. This tells the reader how he plans and lines up the plough precisely, and knows how to plough a furrow correctly. He is not actually mapping out the furrows but the metaphor describes how perfectly the father ploughs. This is also shown by, at the headrig, with a single pluck,’ which tells the reader how the father knows how to position the plough exactly so that the earth is turned skilfully over as they turn around and come back onto the field.

Heaney looks back at how he used to follow and watch his father, ‘stumbled in his hob-nailed wake.’ This makes the reader imagine a little boy tripping over himself, in his effort to keep up with his father. The word ‘wake’ also extends the metaphor of his father almost being like a boat.  This makes the reader imagine the father’s large, nailed boots striding out in front. As he leads the horse drawn ploughing team, the father leaves behind huge ripples that get bigger as they get further away.

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        The father, even through fatigue and exhaustion, sometimes lets Heaney ride on his back. ‘Dipping and rising to his plod,’ makes the reader picture a mighty horse with a little boy bouncing up and down in rhythm with the horses stride. When Heaney was a child he wanted to be a ploughman. ‘I wanted to grow up and plough.’ This tells the reader that Heaney admired his father for his plough. He wants to plough like his father. He wants to use the skills he has acquired from observing his father, ‘close one eye.’ This tells the reader how the ...

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