Analysis of Blackberry Picking by Seamus Heaney
Once the reader can passes up the surface meaning of the poem Blackberry-Picking, by Seamus Heaney, past the emotional switch from sheer joy to utter disappointment, past the childhood memories, the underlying meaning can be quite disturbing. Hidden deep within the happy-go-lucky rifts of childhood is a disturbing tale of greed and murder. Seamus Heaney, through clever diction, ghastly imagery, misguided metaphors and abruptly changing forms, ingeniously tells the tale that is understood and rarely spoken aloud.
Seamus Heaney refers to Bluebeard at the end of stanza one. Bluebeard, according to the footnote, is a character in a fairy tale who murders his wives. Why on earth would there be a reference to a murderous pirate in a poem about blackberries? The exact metaphor is “Our hands were peppered With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s,” (lines 15-16). Heaney is comparing the sticky blackberry juice on their hands to the blood shed on Bluebeard’s hands, from his wives. This comparison makes the first reference to murder in the poem, rather the most obvious one. Picking blackberries is being paralleled to greed and murder by Heaney, in this poem. Murdering the blackberries is an interesting thought. Once picked off the bush out of greed, wanting the blackberries for yourself, the blackberries will only rot away, no longer able to sustain their lives. This murderous act is committed in the innocence of the sp...
In Galway Kinnell’s poem, “Blackberry Eating,” assonance, alliteration, and refrain are used in reinforcing the poem’s meaning that just like the speaker’s interest for “ripest” blackberries as described throughout the poem, words are also rich and intense, thus one is eating straight from the tree of knowledge.
In the Goblin Market there is an odd list of twenty nine different kinds of fruits. Many overwhelmed readers may question why there is so many different kinds of fruit: why not one or two? Just like the overwhelmed reader it may symbolize Laura being overwhelmed by her temptation and desire to eat the different kinds of mouth watering fruit. The fruit is both ripe and the source of decay. The fruit represent opposites: “night vs. day, light vs. dark, summer vs. winter, and life vs. death.”(Krocker) The maidens only hear the goblin cry in the morning and in the evening, never at night. Mornings and evenings are transitional periods, “Twilight is not good for maidens.”(Rossetti 144) Even after Laura cannot hear the goblins anymore, Lizzie still can, but only when “slow evening came” and “before the night grows dark.” The transition symbolizes the transition from a young girl to a woman. Another example of youth to maturity is where the goblins sell the fruit, the brookside a split between land wa...
When Janie was a young girl, she allowed her grandmother’s opinions and beliefs on happiness dictate how she lived her life, which ultimately led to her misery. When Janie was caught kissing Johnny Taylor under the pear tree at the age of sixteen, Nanny told Janie how she wanted her to live her life: “Ah wanted yuh to school out and pick from a higher bush and a sweeter berry. But dat ain’t yo’ idea, Ah see” (Hurston 13). Since she was young, Janie had been mesmerized with the pear tree, the emblem of natural harmony and contentment. She had come to the realization that her dream was to wrestle with life, and just as she was experiencing this freedom, Nanny, the only family she was in contact with, challenged her plans. Nanny took her own experiences as a malnourished slave and condemned Janie to the life in which she was never able to have; Nanny wanted her granddaughter to marry a man with money so that he could support her; she believed that whatever Janie’s assertion of happiness was, was wrong and pointless. When Nanny told Janie that she wanted her to marry a rich man, she spoke with a superior tone that revealed her belittlement towards Janie. She claimed that Janie didn’t know what was best for herself,...
As the novel begins, Janie walks into her former hometown quietly and bravely. She is not the same woman who left; she is not afraid of judgment or envy. Full of “self-revelation”, she begins telling her tale to her best friend, Phoeby, by looking back at her former self with the kind of wistfulness everyone expresses when they remember a time of childlike naïveté. She tries to express her wonderment and innocence by describing a blossoming peach tree that she loved, and in doing so also reveals her blossoming sexuality. To deter Janie from any trouble she might find herself in, she was made to marry an older man named Logan Killicks at the age of 16. In her naïveté, she expected to feel love eventually for this man. Instead, however, his love for her fades and she beco...
In the short story “Marigolds” by Eugenia Collier, the narrator Lizabeth realizes that she is no longer a child but a grown up woman who renounces her innocence and begins her adulthood by developing a sense of compassion. She learns that the world is more than just the dusty shantytown and a squad of kids she plays with; there are also the complex realities of depression, indifference and poverty. The reason behind this realization is that Lizabeth, at an age of 14, overhears her parents’ conversation about the harsh economic situation that their family is facing. She is filled with anger and detests the unfairness that is given to her family. All these feelings encourage her towards an explosive, malicious act of destruction. She is especially
In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight one of the most striking and influential scenes is when the green knight bursts into the great hall and graces the knights and King Arthur with his presence. He arrives in full armor and with a battle axe in one hand and a bob of holly in the other. The most captivating part of this image is the bob of holly that he is holding. The red berries directly contrast with the knight’s skin, which was “green as green could be” (150). This shows a contrast in character; the berries are red and poisonous, while the leaves are green and symbolize nature, peace, and harmony. This is in accordance with the evil and kind sides of the green knight, and leads one to believe that
By the virtue of their innocence, the children in “Marigolds” are cruel. Lizabeth explains how there are “...no radios, few newspapers, and no magazines”(76). Thus the kids are unaware of the poverty they are living in. They have no knowledge of what is happening in the world and are only exposed of what is around them. They live their lives normally, doing their chores, playing and running around like any kid will do. One day, the kids are bored and ...
Blackberries in June is a short story, written by Ron Rash, that highlights the harsh economic standings of families in the Appalachian region on the United States. The main characters are a young newly married couple, Jamie and Matt, who have been blessed with a lake house in the mountains. The young couple are optimistic about having their whole lives in front of them but elders in the story elude to a more somber reality. In the short story, Blackberries in June, the author uses the presence, or lack thereof, of water as a symbol to represent the character's state of freedom.
“Marigolds”, a short story written by Eugenia Collier, illustrates a very complex struggle,but one almost all of us can relate to. It was set in the Great Depression, yet it has relevance today. It is a struggle all of us must go through, though it may hidden unlike the struggle Collier describes. “Marigolds” conveys the struggle between an aimless and innocent adolescent, and a mature and compassionate adult. The clash of two minds and two consciences. Looking through eyes of a 14 year old girl named Lizabeth, Collier declares a very important and relevant message to the reader. One summer night, Lizabeth learns the same lesson Collier wishes to tell the reader. Her theme in “Marigolds” is living a ignorant life, like that of a child,
The tale of Bluebeard dates back to the seventeenth century. "Bluebeard as we know him first appeared in Paris in 1695 as La Barbe Bleue, in the manuscript version of Charles Perrault’s Histories Ou Contes Du Temps Passe, a collection which has become a seminal influence on the evolution of fairy tale" (Davies 33). The villain of this tale is a man with a blue beard whom everyone fears. After inviting his neighbors to stay and celebrate at his country home in attempts to persuade one of the their daughters to marry him, he convinces the youngest of his widowed neighbor to be his bride. All goes well until the new husband goes away on business, leaving his wife in charge with only one rule, to not open the door of one room in the castle. Of course curiosity overtakes the wife and she enters the room only to find Bluebeard’s previous wives murdered within the chamber.
The second and third stanzas of Funeral Rites are highly descriptive, as Heaney describes ‘their puffed knuckles’. This close, sensory description of the body is present in many of his bog poems, but specifically in The Grauballe Man, as, similar to Funeral Rites, Heaney dedicates multiple stanzas to the direct, det...
Eugenia Collier’s “Marigolds” is a memoir of a colored girl living in the Great Depression. The story does not focus on the troubles society presents to the narrator (Elizabeth), but rather is focused on the conflict within her. Collier uses marigolds to show that the changes from childhood to adulthood cause fear in Elizabeth, which is the enemy of compassion and hope.
The state of childhood, in much of literature, is portrayed as the ultimate in innocence, both in character and of perceptions of the world. The shattering of this innocence is often used in writing as a plot device for character development. At times it seems that the extent to which the child’s pure outlook has been destroyed is a measure of how dire a situation can be. As with many autobiographical works that deal with lives of strife, Baldwin also repeatedly returns to moments of his childhood. These moments are often visited through anecdote, and capitalize on various aspects of his personality, his opinions, and his career as an author.
An intriguing yet commonplace subject in literature, childhood contains multiple themes—both subtle and blatant—that often illustrate a child's journey through and discovery of the world. Said themes include topics such as: love, loss of innocence, struggle with identity, and others. In one such story written by James Joyce, a few childhood themes are discussed through the lens of both direct and indirect characterization. Children playing in muddy alleyways, a profession of love in a veiled drawing-room, and a climax formed around the realization of blatant frustration all bring to light themes of epiphany, loss of childlike hope, and courtly infatuation with a young maiden in "Araby."
Both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience provide social criticism on the dangers that child chimney sweepers endure but, Songs of Experience provides better social commentary as Songs of Experience directly identifies the potential for death unlike Songs of Innocence which implicitly identifies the dangers child sweeps endure. In Songs of Innocence, the child chimney sweeper dreams that while he was “lock’d up in coffins of black…an Angel who had a bright key… open’d the coffins…set them all free” (Blake, “Innocence” 12-14). The child’s dream of freedom appears happy and optimistic when in reality it is quite chilling that the child views death as freedom. Blake presents the child chimney sweeper as optimistic to suggest that society needs to help the children find freedom so they do not wish to die. The social commentary in Songs of Innocence is implicit in order to emphasize the child’s inability to fully understand and c...