The Theme Of Death In Mid-Term Break And The Early Purges Essay

The Theme Of Death In Mid-Term Break And The Early Purges The Irish poet Seamus Heaney is renowned for evoking his really personal experiences and feelings throughout his poetry. He frequently calls upon those experiences from his childhood to support his adult feelings over given topics and circumstances. The two poems Mid-Term Break and Early Purges both present two very personal experiences of Heaneys environ his juvenile experiences of death. Both poems combine a variation of techniques in miscellaneous manners to present such views. Mid-Term Break concerns itself with Heaneys remorse and suffering over his brother, an unfounded death over which he had no control. Early Purges, alternatively, concerns itself with an inability of Heaney to use such command to prevent an unnecessary death. The titles of both poems are very symbolic to what the poem is all about. Mid-Term Break The word break implies Heaneys break from school, and besides the break in his brothers life. The Early Purges The word Purge means to empty, cleanse, purify, and getting rid of unpleasant things (in this poem, the unpleasant things are the kittens). Heaneys use of assonance in the opening lines of Mid-Term Break echoes the ominous noises around him. Counting bells knelling to a close The use of the word knelling advocates an immediate sense that something is wrong, since a knell is the bell rung at funerals. The repetition of the ell sound is almost as if the bells are chiming out. In Early Purges, however, Heaney focuses especially on using initial rhyme to indicate the atmosphere around him.... ...poem. Heaney finds it difficult to cope with such a loss so young, and thus detaches himself to make things easier. By contrast, in Early Purges, Heaneys military posture changes through the poem, losing his innocence verse by verse. In the final stanzas this is shown. It makes sense Why does it? It is as if He aney has been conditioned to accept death of pests. The end of the poem is also very effective. Heaney shows contrast between urban and rural views of death. Purging is justified as the animals are referred to as pests. In both poems, Heaney loses something very intimate to him. In Mid-Term Break, Heaney loses his junior brother, in the same way as in Early Purges, he loses his innocence. Mid-Term break is a very emotional and depressing poem whereas Early Purges is very cruel and harsh.