Unseen analysis midterm break 15 September 2021 Mid

Unseen analysis: mid-term break 15 September 2021

Mid term break Mid-Term Break I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close. At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home. Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, In the porch I met my father crying-He had always taken funerals in his stride-And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow. Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, He lay in the four foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram When I came in, and I was embarrassed By old men standing up to shake my hand A four foot box, a foot for every year. Seamus Heaney And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble, ' Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, Away at school, as my mother held my hand In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. • Start with the title… A mid term break is a holiday. It is usually happy. What else can “break” connote?

1 st person narration swiftly established The “knell” is the funeral bell. He is in the sick bay… what sense is generated here – note alliterative C to mimic the bells Ideas to play with • I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close. At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home. Unusual – raises questions In the porch I met my father crying-He had always taken funerals in his stride-And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow. Parenthetic clause suggests the setting of the poem What was? Show don’t tell

Look at the contrasts here of sound age. Why are there no names? The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram When I came in, and I was embarrassed By old men standing up to shake my hand And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble, ' Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, Away at school, as my mother held my hand In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. Look at the language choice. Why is “coughed out” such a powerful description of weeping? Twice the enjambment spans stanzas. Why do you think this is? What emotion is Heaney feeling ?

No nonsense description – informs us of an event but gives no details. At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses. Blunt. Seems objective and dispassionate Implies trauma

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now, The sentences do not match the lines of the poem – emotion is intruding. A shortened line to emphasise the purity of the image? Candles are suggestive of church and the verb is soft Last word of the line… who? ?

Think of the connotations of this metaphor Why this word? Seems very small… Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, He lay in the four foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. Car accident A four foot box, a foot for every year. A line of perfect balance and understatement catching the control and the inability to put the high emotion into words. We have to visualise it! …The first real clue