a constable calls

Question 1

what does the poem deal with

Answer 1

•deals with the development of heaneys sense of identity as a poet and as a member of the northern catholic community

Question 2

what does the poem record

Answer 2

•records the sense of fear and guilt he experienced as a child when he encountered a figure of the law

Question 3

perhaps it’s meant to be symbolic of what

Answer 3

•the uneasy nationalist relationship with the forces of law and order, but in truth it could be describing any child’s encounter with a threatening figure

Question 4

the bicycle is described in images & sounds that suggest

Answer 4

•ugliness and crude strength
•the ow sound in “cowl” has a crude primitiveness, and the assonance of “fat black” emphasizes the suggestions of ungainly strength in the adjectives

Question 5

the “spud” of the dynamo continues to build

Answer 5

•both in image and sound, the pervasive atmosphere of crude, even brutal strength

Question 6

perhaps there’s a hint of

Answer 6

•aggression, possibly life threatening, in that dynamo metaphor “gleaming and cocked back” (as in a gun?)

Question 7

feeling of oppression is created

Answer 7

•quite overtly, without a great deal of subtlety, in the image at the end of the second stanza: “The pedal treads hanging relieved / Of the boot of the law.”
•all of this is created before we even meet the policeman

Question 8

policeman never comes across as

Answer 8

•a person but is defined in terms of his accessories and uniform

Question 9

what establishes the figure of military authority

Answer 9

•a series of disjointed references to the “heavy ledger”, “polished holster”, “the braid cord / Looped into the revolver butt” and the “baton-case” establish the figure of military authority

Question 10

what’s the only human reference

Answer 10

•the only human reference, to the upside down cap, doesn’t serve to humanize this figure but rather repels us further

Question 11

under this stern figure of authority

Answer 11

•the agricultural survey returns have assumed the status of a day of reckoning and the “heavy ledger” becomes the “domesday book”

Question 12

heaney infers the nature of

Answer 12

•the deep rooted divide between predominantly Protestant police & catholic minority

Question 13

how does he add to the tension

Answer 13

•the cacophonous ‘g’, ‘s’ and ‘k’ sounds of the first two stanzas add to the underlying tension of the constables visit

Question 14

upsetting aspect- manner which it involves the emasculation of the father

Answer 14

•in his sons eyes
•young speaker should never have had to witness his fathers “fear” that the farms “Arithmetic” might not satisfy the constables inspection

Question 15

tension in fourth stanza

Answer 15

•speaker is complicit in his fathers lie
•imagines them being thrown in jail for not declaring the turnip patch

Question 16

repition of consonant sounds

Answer 16

•Small guilts and sat / Imagining the black hole in the barracks. / He stoop up, shifted the baton-case”
•reputation of ‘b’ and ‘ck’ reinforce sense of dread

Question 17

menacing alliteration of

Answer 17

•the bicycle that “ticked, ticked, ticked” hints at the troubling times to come in Northern Ireland

Question 18

poem ends with

Answer 18

•haunting sound of constable bike ticking down road like bomb abt to go off
•suggests violent reprisal will someday detonate
•evokes sense of dread