Criticism of Life

1079 Words5 Pages
Summary Like other Heaney poems, ‘A Constable Calls’ is based on a memory. The setting for the poem is the Heaney family farm at Mossbawn. In the poem, Seamus Heaney tells us about an episode from his childhood. The poet describes a policeman making an official visit to his father's farm at Mossbawn. During the visit, the policeman wrote down crop totals for the farm. Back then, in Ulster, policemen gathered information about crops. Seamus Heaney was a boy then and he watched the scene anxiously. The poet looks at tensions in society in ‘A Constable Calls’. The poem shows the fears felt by a Catholic farming family. Catholics did not join the police. Catholics feared, distrusted and disliked the Protestant police. Heaney’s father was cold and distant to the policeman during the visit. Seamus Heaney as a young boy was terrified. During the visit the boy was nervous about the things the policeman had. The poem shows us the tension Heaney felt during the visit. There are nine stanzas of four lines each. In this poem, Heaney describes props. Props are the things in a room or scene. Props are the things that belong to someone. The props often reveal what a person is like. What is the policeman’s name? What does his face look like? How tall is he? These are unanswered questions. The poem focuses on the impact the policeman had on Heaney. Heaney describes the policeman’s props in a way that shows his power and attitude. Heaney’s descriptions show his childish imagination. Heaney’s words show his fears. The props in this poem include a bicycle, a uniform, a book, a baton and a gun. Heaney describes these props in such a way that he persuades us to dislike the policeman. In the first stanza, Heaney describes the policeman’s bicycle. He tells us some facts about the bicycle: ‘His bicycle stood at the window-sill’. He describes its mud splasher, fixed to the
Open Document