Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heany Analysis In the poem, Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heany, the author takes the reader back to the 1940’s in Northern Ireland where he experienced his childhood. The poem seems deceivingly simple about picking blackberries during the summertime. However, the poem demonstrates a deeper meaning. The author relates his childhood memories to the harsh reality of life. In the poem Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heany, the author uses extended metaphor, contrast, similes, and a shift in point of view in order to examine that as one grows and learns, innocence is lost. Throughout the poem, Heany uses an extended metaphor to relate picking blackberries to losing innocence as one grows. In the poem, the author experiences picking blackberries for the first time. He describes the berries as ¨sweet like thickened wine¨ and they made him ¨lust for picking¨. This relates to a child experiencing something for the first time without knowing any of the consequences. As time passes in the poem, the berries …show more content…
In all the examples, things start as good then change for the worse to elude the authors point that as one grows and learns,innocence is lost. In the poem, the berries “sweet flesh turned sour”, this represent the author’s outlook on life. As a child, everything he experienced was blissful because he was unaware of everything that could go wrong. As he grew, he learned and experienced everything that can go wrong so now he lives his life with the burden of things going wrong. Another instance where the author uses contrast is “I hoped they’d keep, but I knew they would not”. Here, the author show the contrast between hope and reality. The act of hoping relates to his childhood self and how he used to have dreams although unrealistic. Knowing the berries would not keep relates to his older self because he has to live with the reality that things go wrong which he learned with
The use of phrases like ‘notice how the oldest girl…’ gives a feeling that the narrator is pointing out to the responder the family members, as if the narrator and the responder are both present at the scene when the family’s moving at the time. The blackberries were used as an indicator of time, showing us how long the family has stayed in this place for, and the changes of the blackberries from when they had first arrived to when they were leaving also used as a symbol to create mood of sadness and the lost of hope. We know from several lines of the poem that the family only stayed at the house that they’ll soon be leaving for a very short while. From the lines: ‘and she’ll go out to the vegetable patch and pick up all the green tomatoes from the vines,’ – The green tomatoes tell us that the tomato plant has not been planted long, not long enough to produce ripe fruits by the time they’re going to leave. ‘
In both poems “ Blackberry Picking” by Seamus Heaney and “After Apple Picking” by Robert Frost, the luxury of picking fruit could be related to a much deeper meaning than just the simple and boring concept. Using literary devices, both poets achieved to portray memorable moments in their life, or in the other case, even death by using hyperbole, imagery, and simile. Firstly by using hyperbole in lines 28- 29 “For I have had too much of apple picking: I am overtired of the great harvest I myself desired”, Frost exaggerates how exhausted he is from “apple-picking” and had done more than he expected to do with his life. In contrast, Heaney uses hyperbole to grab the reader’s interest by reminiscing his childish infatuations of preserving blackberries
The entire poem is based on powerful metaphors used to discuss the emotions and feelings through each of the stages. For example, she states “The very bird/grown taller as he sings, steels/ his form straight up. Though he is captive (20-22).” These lines demonstrate the stage of adulthood and the daily challenges that a person is faced with. The allusions in the poem enrich the meaning of the poem and force the reader to become more familiar with all of the meaning hidden behind the words. For example, she uses words such as innocence, imprisonment and captive to capture the feelings experienced in each of the stages.
The nature of the wife’s interaction with the berries solidifies this metaphor. She puts them “in her mouth” (13), and “Bends or straightens” (5) repeatedly to each bush, while they “taste good to her” (15). These actions aid in demonstrating the flirtation and sexual imagery that exists between the wife and the berries. Moreover, the jealousy the speaker has towards the berries, as well as the wife’s love for the berries over him, further strengthens this metaphor of another man with the speaker’s wife. Another way Layton shows the negative effects of the natural world on the relationship is by using diction, the “word choice” (p.1488) in the poem, to link and distance specific individuals or objects in the poem. The speaker describes the berries as lying “easily” (17), which connects them to the wife’s “easy soul” (21). Similarly, he describes the wife as having “quiet hands” (7), which connects her with the silent berries and the “quiet summer” (7). Additionally, the natural berries are “unoffending” (18), which presents a contrast between them and the husband, who is “vex[ing]” (9), “perplex[ing]” (9) and “barbarous” (16). Finally, Layton utilizes the rhyme scheme of the poem to mirror
Similarly, given the vagueness of the objects that the narrator “cant quite place” within the second stanza, amplifies the trouble that she does not seem to remember exactly what she’s talking about. She begins to describe “a photograph of somebody I never knew, but knew the name of” perhaps a celebrity or distant family member. The end stop lines portray that there is not a lot of depth to the memories on the tray, that they’re truncated. She then moves on to depict her dream to the reader, and I interpret it almost as if the “drooping heads of flowers” is metaphor about life. Life is transient and in the end, will all she remembers about her own life be milk teeth and a contraceptive? The use of numbers in parenthesis could similarly echo life’s cyclical nature such as the 7 being a reminder of the seven days in a week that repeat over and
In a dream the boy has an “Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy, he’d have God for his father, and never want joy” (Blake 19-20). This gives the boy the motivation that he needs to continue his life and so as he awoke, he “was happy and warm; / [and] if [he did his] duty [he] need not fear harm” (Blake 23-24). The young boy decides to suffer through his brutal everyday life so that one day he can go to heaven, where he will be happy. These two polar opposite approaches to dealing with the misfortune of the characters is what shapes both the theme and tone of the poems. Another similarity between these two poems is their extensive use of imagery.
The comparison of experiences shows that innocences can be lost through good or bad situations. Bless me, Ultima quotes, “Had I already lost my innocence? How? I had seen Lupito murdered… I had seen Ultima’s cure… I had seen the men come to hang her… I had seen the awful fight just now… I had seen and revealed in the beauty of the golden carp!” (Anaya 165). This displays how experiences in one’s life shape the innocence they have lost. Distinctions between polar opposites could be denoted as a metaphor in Bless Me, Ultima. For instance, Tony states, “I wanted the cold to draw all the heat out of my tired, wet body and make me well again” (Anaya 165). Hence, this quotation represents the contrast between the cold and warm as metaphors to losing and keeping innocence. Additionally, the contrast of the safeties of a home and the dangers of the outside are indicated. Tony says in the book, “I only wanted to be home, where it was safe and warm” (Anaya 165). Because innocence is lost through the exposure of the world, Anaya uses contrast as a technique to show that a home protects one from the world. Furthermore, all of these examples prove that contrast shows how innocence is lost through
In the end of the narrator’s consciousness, the tone of the poem shifted from a hopeless bleak
In the following lines it starts to contradict the meaning of the poem by saying differences and opposite things such as lines twenty-one and twenty-two, “I realized I was strong when I didn’t cry when it hurt.” Means that not everything is over because she notices that she is really a person, as same as other people, strong, she is someone. Finally she explains that she founds who is she, what she was doing and she also noticed that it is a someone who has a personality by this words; “I thought I was lost forever when a friend found me.” Line twenty-five.
There are a couple of similes the author uses in the poem to stress the helplessness she felt in childhood. In the lines, “The tears/ running down like mud” (11,12), the reader may notice the words sliding down the page in lines 12-14 like mud and tears that flowed in childhood days. The speaker compares a...
A symbol of nature utilized in both poems is a flower. In full bloom, a flower is in its most beautiful and prolific state. In youth, man is in the same state of a flower in bloom, resplendent and bountiful, but the time of beauty for a flower and youth is short. Herrrick states in lines 3-4 “And this same flower that smiles today,/ Tommorrow will be dying,';(728) which is a symbol of the shortness of youth. Frost in lines 3-4 “Her early leaf’s a flower;/ But only so an hour,';(989) also symbolizes the fleeting time of youth. In the beginning, a flower and youth are filled with vitality, but in a short amount of time the flower will wilt and die, and the youth will be an adult on a passage to death.
Through the use of fervent symbolism, allusive diction, and lurid allegory Seamus Heaney, in his poem “Blackberry Picking”, creates a framework to suggest a deeper meaning of lust. Although, Heaneys’ speaker has a progressively declining view on the lust he is referencing, he never loses his passion for the subject.
Seamus Haney has written poems that have caused readers to be moved, inspired, and most of all, relate to and understand. This poet has his readers understand and relate to his poems in his use of truths and tension. In "Death of a Naturalist", the poet tells a story about a young boy who collects frog eggs from a pond every spring. He puts the eggs in jars and watches the tadpoles hatch, all for his own amusement. One day, the boy sees a huge group of frogs around the pond the frog eggs come from. He can only assume the frogs are there for revenge. In this essay the mains points will be the public and personal tension and the universal and individual truths in "Death of a Naturalist". This specific poem is used because it explores the tensions
The choice of words of the author also contributes to the development of the theme. For example, the use of words like "drafty," "half-heartedly," and "half-imagined" give the reader the idea of how faintly the dilemma was perceived and understood by the children, thus adding to the idea that the children cannot understand the burden the speaker has upon herself. In addition, referring to a Rembrandt as just a "picture" and to the woman as "old age," we can see that these two symbols, which are very important to the speaker and to the poem, are considered trivial by the children, thus contributing to the concept that the children cannot feel what the speaker is feeling.
...if all innocence is gone. The etching for the poem has quite obvious natural illustrations in terms of leaves and fruit, however it all looks very depleted and exhausted, as if it’s the last glimmer of hope, growth, and innocence. It appears experience has taken its toll; the snake at the bottom of the etching may represent Satan (as depicted in the book of Genesis and the Garden of Eden), evil, and experience. This etching is apt as it supports the argument that experience has imprisoned and exhausted innocence, light, and hope.