Follower - Seamus Heaney Flashcards
Follower
Heaney wrote the poem to tell the importance of young adults forging their own path in life and to explore the negative attitude towards elderly.
Children have to forge their own paths and become independent as an adult. They cannot form their own identity if they keep following their parents.
General Context
Heaney is descended from generations of farmers in Northern Ireland. However, he did not follow his parents and become a professor. He feels slight guilt about it.
‘Follower’
The speaker is literally following his father in the poem. At the end, the father is following the speaker.
In another way, it may also mean that the speaker wanted to follow his farmer to be a farmer as a child.
‘globed like a full sail strung’
L - metaphor
Describes the father’s muscles as big and rounded from the physical work. The speaker admires his strength.
L - simile
The father is skilfully in control of the movement and direction of the plough like a sailor controls a boat with a sail.
‘An expert.’
L - noun
Suggests that the speaker’s father has superior farming knowledge and the speaker feels inferior in comparison.
L - caesura
Emphasises that it is a fact. It is disputable that his father is an expert farmer.
‘stumbled’
‘fell’
‘yapping’
L - verbs
Suggests that the speaker is comply and lacking physical skill unlike his father.
He feels inferior to his father like he is a nuisance and a burden.
‘he rode me on his back dipping and rising’
I
1. It describes the ride that the speaker has on his father’s back. It suggests that they have a close bond.
2. It may implies that their relationship has ups and downs overtime even though his father is supportive.
‘I wanted to grow up and plough’
L - past tense
It suggests that the speaker’s ambition has changed as he grew older. He no longer wants to be a farmer.
‘All I ever did was follow in his broad shadow’
The speaker feels overwhelmed by his father and he will never be like him. He has to step out of his father’s shadow to forge his own identity.
enjambment between stanza 2 and 3
Highlights the smooth running of the plough as the horses turn and his father’s plough at handling it. His father makes ploughing seems effortless.
caesura in the second line in the last stanza
It signals a shift in time from father and son relationship in the past to emphasise how it has changed in the present.
alternating rhyme scheme with half rhymes
The full rhymes emphasise how close the father and son bond is.
The half rhymes emphasise the speaker’s need to break free to form his own identity.
Reader Response
- sorry
- guilty
- sympathy
