Reflections and Interpretations on "Digging"
When you read poetry there are a lot of elements in the poem that you as the reader or listener have to pay close attention to in order for you to follow what is going on and what the main point of the poem may be. In the poem "Digging" by Seamus Heaney you have to look deep into the poem in order to get the true meaning. Some of the elements of the poem that you'll need to pay close attention to are symbolism, imagery, persona and setting. If you look at each of these and then break the poem down, you will understand the whole theme of "Digging."
In the first few lines of the poem you will be introduced to the setting of the poem, or where the poem takes place. It is here that you find out that the main character is looking out the window and listening to the sounds of his father working while he is in his room with his pen writing. This setting plays a big role in explaining the meaning of the poem and helping to show how the writer describes the differences between the characters. The setting that the writer puts the characters in helps show their differences. The father and grandfather are men who worked outside digging, and it's described in lines 15 through 18 when it says, "By God, the old man could handle a spade. / Just like his old man. / My grandfather cut more turf in a day / Than any other man on Toner's bog." ("Digging" 15-18). In this setting the main character makes it clear that his father and grandfather were very hard workingmen and also took pride in their work. But, you will soon see that the main character uses the descriptions of his father and grandfather to help describe himself as a person.
Some of th...
... middle of paper ...
...tells of himself - his sort of autobiography.
Now, if you put all of this together and start to think of the entire poem, you will and should understand what is trying to be said by Heaney. If you put together how the writer uses certain figures of speech, imagery, symbolism, persona and setting you will see that he is trying to put his life into terms that his father may understand. The father may feel somewhat disappointed in how the son is planning to live his life, but the son knows that he will succeed and will not be a disappointment to his father and grandfather. And as the most important line in the poem says, "I'll dig with it." ("Digging" 31) It is here that the writer makes his point clear that he will accomplish many things in life with his pen, like his father and grandfather before him did with shovels, "digging."
The speaker’s personal emotions emphasizes the poem’s theme since although his father is no longer with him in this world, the memory of his father will always live in his heart. Throughout the poem, Lee uses the sky, underground, and the heart to symbolize imagination, reality, and memory—emphasizing the poem’s theme of the remembrance of a loved one. Lee also uses repetition to convey the meaning of Little Father. The speaker repeatedly mentions “I buried my father…Since then…” This repetition displays the similarity in concepts, however the contrast in ideas. The first stanza focuses on the spiritual location of the speaker’s father, the second stanza focuses on the physical location of the father, and the third stanza focuses on the mental location of the speaker’s father. This allows the reader to understand and identify the shift in ideas between each stanza, and to connect these different ideas together—leading to the message of despite where the loved one is (spiritually or physically), they’ll always be in your heart. The usage of word choice also enables the reader to read in first person—the voice of the speaker. Reading in the voice of the speaker allows the reader to see in the perspective of the speaker and to connect with the speaker—understand
Take note of how the father approached the mistakes made by his son. "I fouled up some screens once, You broke them out with a chair" I feel showed the negative feeling I got when I read the poem. That also makes me believe that it was an apprenticeship. To me parents even if they get upset at something you do, don't go about things in that matter. The son was trying to learn something from his father and rather than explaining and showing the son how to do it correctly or the mistakes he made the father destroys the work. ...
The poem begins by exploring how the speaker’s grandfather was a photographer in World War One and how he turned his hobby into his job: “Opened a shop. Turned it into a family affair”. Kay then goes on to introduce the father’s speaker and how he approached photography differently: “His father knew the equipment but not the art. He knew the darks but not the brights, my father learned the magic.” By first introducing the grandfather as a character the reader can better understand the speaker’s father. Since the grandfather took pictures for the war the moments he captured through his lens were much more gruesome, whereas the speaker’s father chooses to stray from this and focus on positivity or as it’s referred to in the poem “light”. Kay then introduces the speaker’s mother, exploring her passion for photography and giving her the title of “artist”. While the grandfather turned photography into his job, the speaker’s father uses photography as a way of capturing noteworthy events, for example: “he travelled across the country to follow a forest fire, hunted it with his camera for a week.” Finally, the speaker’s mother focuses more on the artistry of photography which is seen through her focus on the use of her darkroom. By exploring each of these characters, Kay
When reading the name of the poem "Digging", it seems like it will be about nothing at all. Digging is a basic and ordinary activity and the reader does not expect anything meaningful when reading the poem. This is deceptive, because the first two lines present readers with a sense of choice. Heaney immediately makes them aware of the deeper issue of the subject he is about to explore and therefore creates an alertness in them.
At first glance the poem may appear to have no purpose other than the, describing the hash Australian outback, but the last two lines suggest some additional significance. The poet shows that this simple, pleasant memory and how it re-in-acts his childhood. The way in which the windmills squeaks and groans to bring water from the ground whereas during the period of rain they work in harmony, as the rain comes down.
The poem focus around her child's birthday party. As the visitors arrive, Olds described it on line three as, "Short men, men in first grade with smooth jaws and chins". It represents how the young boys need to be men. The hands being in their pockets described the young boys appear to be more grown up. These young boys play war games, small fights, as they think war is a man's thing, yet they have no clue about the revulsions. Olds is calling them by the name of their
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
At the beginning of the poem, the speaker starts by telling the reader the place, time and activity he is doing, stating that he saw something that he will always remember. His description of his view is explained through simile for example “Ripe apples were caught like red fish in the nets of their branches” (Updike), captivating the reader’s attention
To focus deeper on imagery it paints a very dark thought at first about how a father physically abuses his kid in front of the mom. This shows how good the author is at writing and how he ties in the theme to the poem. A line that is so misinterpreted is, “At every step you missed, my right ear scraped a
He uses personifications specifically in this poem to write about what is going on and to describe things. “It's a hard life where the sun looks”(19)...”And its black strip of highway, big eyed/with rabbits that won’t get across ”(2)...”A pot bangs and water runs in the kitchen” (13) None of these are really human body parts on things such as the sun, a pot, or a highway, but they help describe what something does or what something looks like. In the first instance, the sun cannot actually look at something, but it could mean that the sun is visible to the humans, and if humans are out for a long time in the sun, they can get hot and exhausted. For the second line, the big-eyed highway could mean that the highway has many cars with bright headlights that are dangerous for the rabbits, the immigrants, to get across. For the third and final line, pots are not able to bang things on their own, and it could have possibly been a human who made the pot bang, preparing the meal of beans and brown soup that they survive on. There is also a simile in this poem, “Papa's field that wavered like a mirage” (24). This simile could suggest that the wind is moving the grass or crops on his father’s field and looked like an optical illusion. According to Gale Virtual Reference Library, the literary device, “tone” is used to convey the significant change of the author’s feeling in the poem. In the beginning lines, the tone is happy. The poem talks about nostalgia of when he was little, “They leap barefoot to the store. Sweetness on their tongues, red stain of laughter (5-6). (GVRL) These lines illustrate the nostalgia and happy times of Gary Soto’s life when he was probably a child. However, after line 11, the tone becomes more of a negative one. Soto later talks about Farm Laborers and how the job was not a great one. After line 19, a brighter
The "Digging".. “Digging” by Seamus Heaney is the first poem in the first full volume of Heaney’s poem, “Death of a Naturalist”. The “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 for their hard work. Even though Heaney did not follow in his footsteps and become a farm laborer, he respects the work they do, especially their skill at digging. This poem is a free verse poem.
In the “Digging,” Heaney starts the poem with a self-image, pen in hand. He hears some kind of sound through his window in which case, we come to understand it is his father that is digging. Nonetheless, in line 7, we come to understand that the sound is possibly an echo from the past. In essence, this makes us look into the poem as taking the speaker through not just his father’s memory but also a journey through time in search of self. Further,
Comparing and Contrasting Digging and The Follower In this essay I will be giving quotes and explaining about two pieces of poetry, written by Seamus Heaney. The two poems I will be writing on will contrast and his memories on his rural childhood. The poems will be "the follower" which takes us back to Heaney as a child wanting to follow in his father's footsteps. I will also be writing on "digging", which takes us back once again to his farm but instead not wanting to follow in his fathers footsteps So basically I will be writing about how the poems contrast to his rural childhood and I'll explain the quotes and the poems. I will firstly however give you a bit of an insight to Heaney's life Seamus Heaney was born April 13, 1939, at Mossbawn, about thirty miles northwest of Belfast, in Northern Ireland.
"Stopping by Woods" The visible sign of the poet's preoccupation is the recurrent image of dark woods and trees. The world of the woods, a world offering perfect quiet and solitude, exists side by side with the realization that there is also another world, a world of people and social obligations. Both worlds have claims on the poet. He stops by woods on this "darkest evening of the year" to watch them "fill up with snow," and lingers so long that his "little horse" shakes his harness bells "to ask if there is some mistake." The poet is put in mind of the "promises" he has to keep, of the miles he still must travel. We are not told, however, that the call of social responsibility proves stronger than the attraction of the woods, which are "lovely" as well as "dark and deep"; the poet and his horse have not moved on at the poem's end. The dichotomy of the poet's obligations both to the woods and to a world of "promises"--the latter filtering like a barely heard echo through the almost hypnotic state induced by the woods and falling snow-is what gives this poem its singular interest.... The artfulness of "Stopping by Woods" consists in the way the two worlds are established and balanced. The poet is aware that the woods by which he is stopping belong to someone in the village; they are owned by the world of men. But at the same time they are his, the poet's woods, too, by virtue of what they mean to him in terms of emotion and private signification.
Throughout the poem, the speaker responds to the actions of his father by outlining his feelings. A consistent structure, with the exception of stanza three, is found within the poem. The speaker almost seems to be creating a cause and effect list. Berry’s choice to begin every stanza with the word “for,” further emphasizes the list-like quality of the poem.