Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney. Essay -- English Literature

Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney.Mid-Term Break by the poet Seamus Heaney is about a individual(prenominal)experience that he has encountered. It deals with the issues of lifeand death in a family and too how different people cope.The title at first suggests that the metrical composition is going to be about aholiday, but as you purport into the poem further, you realise that thetitle has a far deeper and darker meaning...In the first stanza, we agree that Seamus Heaney is in a college sickbay waiting to be picked up. You get suspicious when he is beingpicked up his neighbour, which could indicate that something serioushas happened. succession is passing slowly, and Heaney uses alliteration to show this.Counting bells knelling classes to a close.Already so first in the poem, we sense that something is wrong due tothe poets word superior of knelling. Knelling is when a church bellrings to signify a funeral. The clues arrive more apparent as you movethrough the stanzas, and are very(prenominal) effective in arousing yoursuspicions.When Seamus Heaney arrives home, he is greeted by his father crying onthe porch. A stereotypical male would usually hold back his feelingsand Heaney uses diversion to show this.In the porch i met my father crying---He had always taken funerals in his stride---And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.Obviously something had caused him groovy pain, and parenthesis iseffective in showing that normally Heaneys father would store up hisfeelings, and be strong for everyone else, taking things in hisstride.Meanwhile in the next verse.The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pramThis extract shows that the baby is oblivious to its surround andto what is happen... ...ld, and was killed in a road trafficaccident...A four foot box, a foot for every year.The poet is emphasizing the fact that his brother was unspoilt an innocentchild, and did not deserve to die at such an early stage in his life.He places this line separate from the rest of the stanzas and thisdraws your wariness to it making you count about how precious lifeis, and salutary when you calculate that you have it all figured out,something happens that makes you question the purpose of life again.We think that the natural order is for adults to die before childrenand that is why it is such a hard thing to come to terms with when achild dies in a family.A point i think that Heaney was trying to filtrate to the reader, isthat no matter what tragedies happen in life, in the end we just haveto move on and accept the past so we derriere move onto the future.