Analysis of Digging by Seamus Heaney and The Writer by Richard - Essay Example

"Digging" by Seamus Heaney and "The Writer" by Richard Seamus Heaney’s poem, Digging, is composed of several language pictures, fantastic themes, imagery, tones, meanings and variety of constructions to bring the figure of vigour of the poet to the audience. The depiction of the poet sedentary at his writing while looking out on his father, who remained digging the flowerbed, is a well brought out imagery of hard work and persistence. All that separates the poet and the father is a single pane of glass. However, the barrier between the father and the son who happens to be the poet, in this case, is at the very heart of digging, and this leads to the metaphor “snug as gun” that is well brought out in this poem (Heaney Line 2). Heaney compares his pen to a defence with which to defend himself from criticism about the choice and type of his career. The ideas presented in this poem bear a variety of similarities presented by Wilbur in his poem, The Writer. Wilbur talks about his daughter and seems to be targeting parents who are in the same situation with him as audience. Therefore, Digging and The Writer are similar, in content, since they both address issues relating to the family. For example, isolation is one theme that is strongly revealed in Digging. Heaney isolation, from his family, is indicated when he returns, from school, to attend his brother’s funeral during mid-term break. His fear about farming is explored in the ban. Heaney’s admiration for his father and frustration, at his own lack of skills, are presented in the “flower” while his lack of understanding is ironically expressed in “death of a naturalist” (Heaney line 6). On the other hand, digging is metaphorically used to mean coming into terms with all these issues that the poet represents. The poet talks of the pen writing, like holding a gun, which is a clear indication of scenes of violence. The use of assonance “the pen rests” and “snug as a gun” appears to rhyme, as well (Heaney Line 2). In Digging, there is an extensive amount of entrapment imagery from the beginning top the end. Use of imagery helps the audience understand the poem’s theme with a lot of ease. For example, Wilbur describes his daughter’s room as a place where light breaks for the windows are covered with linden and a tree with yellow and white flows (Wilbur Line 2). In addition, like many similes in the poem Digging, the author talks about daughter’s door being closed and the daughter locked inside hence the outsiders could only hear the noise of cluttering keys on the keyboard (Wilbur Line 20). Wilbur goes ahead and makes the poem even more humorous using a simile” like a chain hauled over a gunwale” (Wilbur Line 6) when comparing her daughter to the work she was doing on the keyboard, which literally were the chains. These words also create, to some extent, internal rhyme schemes of the poem. In Digging, there is someone out gardening using a shovel and making rasping sound, as it breaks deep into the ground. The rasping comes out from the fact that this shovel has to cut through the fallen leaves and tiny bits of stones and gravel. Rasping and gravelly work, in this case, are used are paradoxically used to describe the sound. This sound creates a mood that is similar to that one Seamus presents in The Writer when he talks about his daughter and wish her the best of luck in her future endeavours (Wilbur Line 33). The poems’ titles also bear similarities and differences depending on how a reader understands them. First, in Digging, audience immediately conceptualizes a shovel being quickly thrust into a soft ground. A sound, which is quick and clean through a subtle rasp, is imagined as the metal passes by stones in the soil’s gravel. The narrator, by being distracted by the outside noise, indicates the presence of both sight and sounds that engages the reader wholesomely. The person digging outside is purportedly his father, so far only the pen, spade and gun are the objects that have been mentioned. The pen is indoor, and the spade is outside while the gun is in an abstract sense while, in The Writer, the author presents a working nature just as in Digging. Wilbur refers to the family he is talking about as a working family. He talks of a bog, which is a patch of muddy ground covered with peat or turf, which forms the Gracie top. The creation of “toner’s bog” (Heaney Line 18) gives the poem a sombre mood and an inclusive feeling to those people who are familiar with the traditions of the potato farming and peat harvesting. This sombre mood is also evident in The Writer. The narrator extends further by giving explanations about the problems encountered by being members of a potato farming community. In Digging, the narrator uses a slightly different language as compared to The Writer. However, both authors are primarily concerned with describing the problems and dismays they experienced, during their young adulthood stages, to expose their audiences into a world of hardships. The Writer is characterized with concealed secrets of the world, which takes an alternative direction from the normal technique, normally used in constructing blog poems, which utilizes an allegory in Bog land. Though it uses this metaphor, it is used in a more penetrating focus as the land seems to come alive, and the poem being exposed as the source of power and mystery. This level of creativity is also displayed in Digging where the poet notes that his grandfather never digs for flowers or potatoes, but for peat, which is fuel (Heaney Line 18). However, he does not do any of these tasks. The narrator, in The Writer, though very young, exhibits knowledgeable skills as he even takes the milk to his grandfather. In this context, an image of carrying a sloppily corked guard is portrayed to sharpen the thinking of the targeted audiences who would be reading and reciting this poem. On the other hand, Heaney, in Digging, also brings out this comparative imagery by using a language that is not easily tacit while drawing equivalents with the party-political and social organizations and social conditions, in Ireland. This writer’s assembly to the past allows him appear relevant to the current issue in a slanted, but a powerful way. In creating the themes, of these poems, the poets seem not to be like minded. For instance, Heaney represents a theme, of confrontation and disobedience, which is contrary in making a dynamic political proclamation. Digging, on the other hand, talks about political description of the land, use of folklore and history and religious troposphere, which is also presented in The Writer that talks about tradition and images of prejudice, intolerance and violence. However, The Writer is to some extent stronger and more satisfying in describing a traditional society. For example, cork that is portrayed as imagery, in his poem, takes the audience ages back when that was the norm. Digging also portrays a hidden meaning of the acceptable and non-acceptable societal ethic, but to a lesser extent. The use of paper, in the two societies presented in the poems, also varies. Wilbur, in his poem, The Writer, connects the term paper in a hidden manner presented as not current. Unlike traditional era where a paper was used as a cork, he describes it as a tool for sending a message. The traditional literary works use images of rustic Ireland, which significant varies between the poems. For example, Heaney, in Digging, stakes himself out the precincts, of his poetic vocation portrayed in most of his literary works, to bring an insinuation in literal understanding of his poem. In The Writer, Wilbur talks, about his grandfather, to portray the traditional society where men believed in hard work. His grandfather while digging, only takes a sip and continue to work. Both the poems present a traditional society where people believed in hard work and did hardship jobs. Another difference in construction of the two poems is in the use of differences in language that makes one of them poems more satisfactory than the other. In the poem, Digging, the narrator’s father is portrayed as being prolific at digging up potatoes, and apparently, his grandfather was equally good when it came to working in the farm. He seems to think like a young man, who believes that working with hands is a significant thing, hence paying his father and grandfather a compliment on their work. “By God” has been used, in Digging, to show astonishment, and as an exclamation without necessarily putting the exclamation marks hence attracting the audience attention and creating a sense of humour on the reader interested in knowing what the speaker, his father and grandfather are skilled in. On the other hand, the narrator in The Writer similarly constructs or composes his poem with a sense of humour based on traditional settings. He takes his audience back by bringing out the smell and sound of digging for potatoes and peat to create a sense of humour, which is well related, though not directly, to Heaney’s Digging. In conclusion, both Heaney and Wilbur construct their works more clearly and perfectly with the same literary styles and aspects of composition; however, some of their themes differ. Works Cited Digging by Seamus Heaney Retrieved from: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/177017 The Writer by Richard Wilbur Retrieved from: http://vw2000.wordpress.com/2008/11/23/richard-wilbur-poetry-the-writer/ Read More