Poem analysis of Digging (1966) by Seamus Heaney - Essay Example

John Q. Doe English 344 8 May 2000 “Digging” Analysis In “Digging” by Seamus Heaney, the Irish poet combines the rural with the urban. Scenes of hewing sod and digging potatoes combine with images of the poet at his desk with pen in hand. Additionally, the poet combines images from the past and images from the present. Overall, the poem represents the narrator’s attempt to justify his present profession, writing, with his ancestors’ occupation, farming. Heaney creates this theme by juxtaposing images throughout the poem.

The first juxtaposed images are the images of the pen and the gun. These images are juxtaposed within a single line, “The squat pen rests; snug as a gun” (Heaney 2). The first image, the pen, also serves as a frame for the poem, appearing in the second line of the poem and the thirtieth line. These images contrast the purposes of each implement. The narrator of the poem appears to be a writer. His ancestors are all farmers. The tools they used all had a specific purpose that resulted in a way of life, farming.

By becoming a writer, the narrator has broken the mold of his family. Throughout the poem, he considers the spade his father and grandfather used, and the pen is obviously not as useful in a physical sense as the spade. But, by comparing the pen to a gun, the narrator is giving it power. The pen cannot gather food from the earth or split turf to sell, but the words it creates can be as powerful as a gun. Words have inspired wars and resulted in the imprisonment of writers. The next juxtaposed images are of the father gardening and the father digging potatoes.

In the first stanza, the narrator is composing at a window. While he is writing, his father is below the window digging in flower beds. This image thrusts the narrator into the past where he remembers his father digging potatoes. The juxtaposed images are present in the line, “I look down / Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds / Bends low, comes up twenty years away” (Heaney 5-7). This image mirrors the thoughts of the narrator about the usefulness of his pen. The father once engaged in meaningful work with his shovel, digging potatoes, but he now spends his time digging in flower beds.

The narrator feels the same about his ancestry and his current occupation. He is a writer, which is the practical equivalent of digging in flower beds instead of in a potato patch. The image continues as the narrator travels back to memories of his grandfather, who used his tools for one purpose, cutting peat. For the narrator, the value of a tool seems to be its practical use. The effect of all the images in the poem is that they reinforce the narrator’s feelings about his craft and tool.

His family has always worked the land and created something from the earth. For the narrator, this activity was noble. When he looks at his pen and then down at his father digging and then back into the past, he is almost ashamed of what he does. However, by the end of the poem, he has a realization. Though he does not use a spade, he can “dig” with his pen (Heaney 31). He can open new worlds for the reader, and his pen has the power of a gun. In many ways, his work has a greater impact on a wider variety of people.

It has the power to provide and the power to destroy. His father and grandfather engaged in noble work, and by the end, the narrator realizes that his work is noble as well. Work CitedHeaney, Seamus. "Digging." Digging by Seamus Heaney. The Poetry Foundation. Web. 19 Mar. 2012. .