Blackberry Picking Essay

659 Words3 Pages
Blackberry-Picking The poem, “Blackberry-Picking”, by Seamus Heaney is a non-judgmental and nostalgic look at the past. The clear differences and vivid sensory imagery enclosed between the first two stanzas, create an allusion of youthfulness, lust, and hope through metaphors and similes of his memories as a child growing up on a farm in the Irish countryside, but then end in the reality and disillusion of the rotting blackberries. This leads to the theme that events in life that are driven by desire, are only kept alive in the moment, but fade over time leaving only memories and dissatisfaction. The first stanza is an expression of his youth through the symbol of blackberry picking representing inner hope and desire. The joy that Heaney had as a child came to light as he “ate the first one and its flesh was sweet like thickened wine,” emphasizing the desire that came with picking and eating blackberries, which compares to the great taste of drinking wine. Both events, picking blackberries and drinking wine, represent freedom and self-satisfaction allowing this comparison to enhance Heney’s youthful and jaunty mood as a child. The sense of taste is re-engaged when Heaney describes his lust for the first blackberry as of “summer’s blood leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for Picking” which is Heaney’s unrestrained desire and excitement for more blackberries. This desire for more is expressed through the savory description of the blackberries themselves through Heneys use of assonance in them being “glossy purple clots” and having “sweet flesh”. Heaney is remembering his youth and innocence while savoring each memory through this action of blackberry picking allowing him to hope and strive to keep his past alive and tangible. The second stanza, however, contrasts the idea of his youth through the idea that the blackberries that were once
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