The poems are about Heaney’s childhood, in his poems he explains the change of attitude to the natural world, and the poems both have two parts: the childhood and his views as an adult. His poems describe his experience as a child. The reader knows that Heaney is describing his childhood in “Blackberry Picking” because in his poem he shows a vivid account of picking blackberries which shows us that it can only be done by child. A quotation to prove this is “I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair”.
Rachel Hodges DP1 English Literature October 10th 2013 WORD COUNT: 895 Write an essay in which you explore one of the motifs central to Adichie's Purple Hibiscus. What does this motif contribute to our understanding of the purpose or central theme of the text? How does the motif of nature contribute to our understanding of central themes in the text? In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus the narrative voice is a teenage girl who was physically and emotionally scarred by her father. To portray many of the changes that take place in Kambili throughout the novel the idea of nature is recurrently used.
All three poems manage to display how as children they were exploring the natural world around them, Heaney exploring the "Frogspawn" and both Sheers and Heaney picking "blackberries" which are seen as childhood experiences. This exploration seemed to lead to them all finding something "dark" inside them as they begin to mature. In "DoaN" Heaney uses war like imagery such as "cocked" and "mud grenades", this may allude to the civil war in Ireland at the time as Heaney begins to see the world isn't as simple as "Miss Walls" would tell him. He is beginning to see that procreation does not happen because a partner "croaked" and in "BP" we see further how his innocence is being lost and he is learning about sexuality in the nouns "lust" and "hunger. They manage to illustrate how Heaney is developing a desire for sex which conflicts with his original childish adventures and shows the developing confusion he went through as he grew older.
‘BLACKBERRY-PICKING’, by Seamus Heaney, portrays of people’s in ability to enjoy something until it is gone and that it only becomes important to them when they can’t have it. It also portrays that things do not last forever. The fact that the poet tributes this this to poem ‘PHILIP HOBSBAUM’ and “we” and “our” is mentioned in the poem , implies to the reader that he is dead and was most likely his blackberry picking companion. The fact that it is summer in “Late August”, it gives the reader the idea that this is in the northern hemisphere. It can be said that the poet is writing as an adult and then implies that the poet is nostalgically looking back on fond memories of his childhood and his experiences of blackberry picking.
The poem Digging by Seamus Heaney seems to follow the theme of heritage and family traditions in which the protagonist breaks what could be his family’s legacy. The poem being a contemporary one is written in free verse with eight stanzas and two couplets and is divided into a flashback and the present time in which the writer is writing. The first two lines are a couplet. These two lines are also a part of the present. The phrase ‘the squat pen rests as snug as a gun’ compares a pen to a gun, which could be because the author wants to portray writing as an equally masculine task or that the written word is as harmful as the wounds that may be inflicted by a gun.
‘Blackberry Picking’ is a poem which explores the childhood experience of the narrator, Seamus Heaney. The poem starts off with an atmosphere of anticipation and excitement as he and his friends go blackberry-picking. However, the poem slowly goes on to show the change of expectations the boy had when he realises that the blackberries are rotting, and at the end we are left with the narrator’s thoughts and feelings of this change. At the beginning of the poem, we can get a vivid idea of the positive atmosphere, before the change occurs. This slowly leads to a clear understanding of the poem’s theme, further on in the text; “Late August, given heavy rain and sun for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.” This emphasizes that the poet, as a young boy, is aware that they need these conditions of ‘rain and sun’ for the blackberries to ripen.
The poet repeats at each beginning of stanza the phrase ‘If you can’. This anaphora represents layers of bad elements being peeled of every line. The various advice changes throughout the poem but the way it is presented stays the same. First he presents what is good to be done and then the consequence of this action. In ‘Advice to a son’, Hemingway also takes on a didactic tone.
The flowers are a symbol in the poem, but also in reality for the family (a symbol of new life, after death). The bruise is seen as not really part of the boy - he is “wearing” it (a metaphor), as if it could come off. Heaney likens the bruise to the poppy, a
Jacob Collins “Fern Hill” By Dylan Thomas Dylan Thomas’ “Fern Hill”, set on his aunt’s farm, is a well written, enjoyable text. Many images, symbols, and literary techniques increase the depth of the speaker's message to the reader. “Fern Hill” is a poem in which the speaker recalls his childhood and its inevitable end. The poet recreates and communicates the untroubled experience of his early years whilst in a state of blissful ignorance. Throughout the poem time is portrayed as an authority figure with strict control over his life, eventually revealing the inescapable realisation of his mortality.
Discuss Thomas’ presentation of nature in ‘Old Man’ In the poem ‘Old Man’ by Edward Thomas we see a recurring theme of nature which can also be viewed in his other poems whilst going alongside the theme of war. We see in the first stanza that it begins with the theme of naming as the plants with strange names are remembered fondly and the phrase ‘knows it well’ that it suggests a familiarity and and wealth of memory associations which is challenged later on in the poem. It uses gentle internal rhymes such as ‘tree’, ‘rosemary’, ‘things’ and ‘clings’ which suggest a fond, conversational reminiscence, linking in with another large theme of age. The word reverse putting ‘clings’ before the negative ‘not’ encourages the reader to hold both positive and negative meanings in their mind momentarily. We are therefore given the sense of ‘clinging’ – that the speaker takes an interest in the plant for its names, and ‘clinging not’, in that they seem out of place with the plant itself.