How Does Seamus Heaney Make a Human Experience of the Natural World and the Problems of Writing in “a Constable Calls” and “from the Frontier of Writing” so Memorable?

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“A Constable Calls” is about a protestant police officer, who was part of the B-specials at the time (“boot of the law”), who visits a catholic family to collect their land tax, “acres, roods and perches.” It is about the young boy’s fear of this man and the sights he sees during this strangers meeting with his father. The poem is in the first person so we assume that the boy in this poem is Seamus Heaney himself, giving us a picture of his childhood as part of a catholic family. Seamus Heaney uses the phrase “Cocked back” to create a dark and arrogant impression of the policeman. The word “cocked” suggests pride. This shows us that the policeman is proud of his job, proud of being protestant and proud to have this feeling of dominance over the family in the poem. Heaney uses alliteration, the harsh “ck” sound in “cocked” and “back” to suggest that he isn’t going to be friendly; he’s going to be harsh and ugly. “Polished holster” also creates a dark image of the man. It suggests violence and aggression, but also prepared violence, like he knew he was going to need the gun that day so he cleaned it, this is a scary thought and we can tell Heaney is trying to create a grotesque image of the policeman here. This prepared violence refers to the mention of the “revolver” as well, again using imagery to create a cruel image of the policeman. “Black hole in the barracks” creates a dark picture in the readers mind as it gives us the image of the punishment for lying to the policeman if he gets caught. Again the harsh “ck” sound creates a harsh picture like the policeman is the one saying it like a judge in a court. “Ticked, ticked, ticked” is a great and strong finish to the poem. The repetition of it suggests importance and it gives us a picture of a bomb about to go off or a clock which is about to run out of time, suggesting something bad in the future. All of these

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