A Comparison of Midterm Break and The Early Purges Essay example -- Po

A Comparison of Midterm Break and The Early PurgesFor this assignment we come studied two poems by Seamus Heaney. Bothof these poems are linked because they are about Heaneys earlymemories of death and how he coped with these difficult situationswhen he was a young.The subject matter of the poem Midterm Break is about his brothersdeath. It also tells us about his feelings about this death. Heaney isaway at embarkation school. Waiting in the college sick bay. Heaneywrites At two o clock our neighbours drove me home. Which showsthat his parents were unable to come to pick him up as they mightiness engagebeen held up with something.Heaney wanted to express his feelings, to let us know what he feltlike having to cope with the death of his little brother. It must havebeen a particularly difficult situation for him.There is a lot of sadness in the poem from the beginning. Heaneywrites of bells knelling classes to a close. Knelling is a sound offuneral bells, not a school bell. This ind icates that Heaney is goingto a funeral. The first person he encounters is his farther crying,this is an unusual sight for him. He always took funerals in his rate. This shows hes been to other funerals, but he has not beenaffected in the same way. Heaney also remembers a family friendcommenting on the death as a hard blow. This means harsh/unexpectedalso it is an unfortunate pun as his brother has also suffered ablow. Heaney feels ill-fitting when older men stand up to shakehis hand. They say to Heaney sorry for my trouble, the wordtrouble again seems insubstantial. He has to cope with strangers andwhispers from the people that come int know him. He holds his mothershand but she c... ...rites in the fourth stanza that hewas frightened this contrasts greatly with dans attitude. Heaneysadly hangs around the yard for some prison term afterwards. Heaney forgetsthis image but it comes back to him when he sees Dan killing otheranimals. He appears to have come to term with the farmyar d slaughterwhen he grows up. Heaney writes it makes sense, this suggests thesame cold-hearted views as Dan taggart. The last line suggests thatHeaney realises now that some animals are pests. He still does notforget the unsettling incident when he was younger.Both poems show how Heaney deals with death. The death of animals aswell as his brother affected him. In one poem he is dealing with anaccident, a death and also peoples reactions. In this poem he dealswith deliberate killing of animals, this is a colder, harder poem andit is also unsentimental.