"Digging"
“Digging” by Seamus Heaney is the first poem in the first full volume of Heaney’s poems, “Death of a Naturalist”. “Death of a Naturalist” is about the transition into adulthood and the loss of innocence. The poem shows how Heaney looked up to his father and grandfather, especially their hard work. Even though Heaney did not follow in their footsteps and become a farm laborer, he respects the work they do, especially their skill at digging.
The poem is a free verse poem. It has eight stanzas with two couplets. It rhymes occasionally, but it does not have a patterned rhyme. The first two lines rhyme with “thumb” and “gun”, the second stanza also has some rhyming words. The poem is a first person narrative; this is evident from the first line that uses the word “my” and other lines throughout that use words such as “I” and “we”. The title relates to the poem because all three generations mentioned are digging. His father dug potato drills and flowerbeds, his grandpa used to dig peat, and he is digging up the past. Because of this, the title is very fitting.
Throughout the poem Seamus Heaney uses shifts in the tense to convey his memories as well as his determination for the future. It starts off in present tense as he sees his father struggling with the flowerbed. The poem then shifts to past in order to recall his grandfather’s work digging peat and his father’s stronger days digging potato drills. The poem returns to present tense during the last two stanzas. The final line is future tense in order to show that Seamus understands that his work is writing.
The first stanza of the poem says the pen in his hand fits “snug as a gun” (line 2. The second stanza is Heaney looking down from is window to s...
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...” as they fill the bucket. Another shift occurs in the second stanza when the speaker says they “hoarded the fresh berries in the byre” (line 17). “Byre” means a shed, but it can also be a support for a casket or corpse. This foreshadows what is to come.
The berries begin to spoil because more were picked than could be eaten in time. The “rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache” (line 19) got to them. The berries would have lasted longer if they had been left on the bush, but desire and greed overwhelmed the speaker when picking the luscious berries. Because he lost the berries due to rotting, the speaker says, “I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair / That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot. / Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not” (lines 22-24). The speaker collects berries every year, more berries than needed, and he always sees them go bad.
The first stanza incorporates a lot of imagery and syntax. “A toad the power mower caught,”(line1). The use of syntax in the very first sentence is to catch the reader’s attention and to paint an image for them. The stanza goes on to talk about how the toad hobbles with it’s wounded leg to the edge of the garden, “Under the cineraria leaves”(line4). The speaker uses the word cineraria, which is similar to a cinerarium, a place where the ashes of the deceased are kept. By using this, the speaker further illustrates the death of the toad. “Low and final glade.”(Line6) this line is like a metaphor for the dying toad, the final rest for the toad could be the final glade. In the first stanza it seems as if the speaker is making fun of the dying toad saying the garden sanctuaries him as if he were a person. The opening line even seems a bit humorous to the reader. The following stanzas also have a tone of sarcasm.
As he slouches in bed, a description of the bare trees and an old woman gathering coal are given to convey to the reader an idea of the times and the author's situation. "All groves are bare," and "unmarried women (are) sorting slate from arthracite." This image operates to tell the reader that it is a time of poverty, or a "yellow-bearded winter of depression." No one in the town has much to live for during this time. "Cold trees" along with deadness, through the image of "graves," help illustrate the author's impression of winter. Wright seems to be hibernating from this hard time of winter, "dreaming of green butterflies searching for diamonds in coal seams." This conveys a more colorful and happy image showing what he wishes was happening; however he knows that diamonds are not in coal seams and is brought back to the reality of winter. He talks of "hills of fresh graves" while dreaming, relating back to the reality of what is "beyond the streaked trees of (his) window," a dreary, povern-strucken, and cold winter.
The second stanza and third stanza tell how the woodchucks continue to destroy the garden because the cyanide gas was not successful. The speaker tells about the woodchucks taking over the vegetable patch and beheading the carrots. This drives the speaker crazy, therefore taking the violence to another level. The speaker pulls out a gun and puts the ...
poem. It almost seems that the narrator is recalling the woman that was from his past and
“For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck, For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop.” The men hanging to wither and rot for no reason other than ignorance, greed and prejudice. “A strange and bitter crop.”
Heaney’s poem, “Digging” showed that while the boy still loved his father, he did not wish to carry on the tradition of potato digging that had been in his family for generations. For example, Heaney wrote that he had “no spade to follow men like them”(Spence par 1). This quote states that Heaney, although loving his father, did not think he could carry on the tradition. Heaney remembers the way he would bring his grandfather a glass of milk, and would drink the entire bottle, and then would watch his grandfather fall to work once again. This brings about the fact that while still caring a great deal for his father and grandfather, he still would prefer the path of a writer (Glover 542). Ultimately, Heaney chose not to “follow men like them”, and chose instead on becoming a writer. This is backed up later in the poem when Heaney writes “Between my finger and my thumb/The squat pen rests/I’ll dig with it.” Heaney had always watched his father from the upstairs window while he dug, and Heaney would watch and write, and this fanned the fire for Heaney’s desire to become a writer (Pellegrio pa...
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