Follower - Seamus Heaney

Question 1

Summary

(4 things)

Answer 1

1. Son remembers fathers experise as a ploughman
2. Recalls how he wanted same expertise as followed father in field
3. Discovers not have same talent
4. Now father stumbles and follows sone

Question 2

Key Aspects

Answer 2

1. Theme of relationship between father/son
2. Bond with soil through son’s desire to plough land
3. Powerful imagery contrasts portraits of father and son
4. 6 quatrains, written in first person
5. Rhyme scheme regular, created with full rhyme and half rhyme
6. Iambic tetrameter

Question 3

Structure and Form

Answer 3

1. 6 quatrains, written in first person
2. Rhyme scheme regular (ABAB), created with full rhyme (e.g. “sod”, “plod”) and half rhyme (e.g. “wake” “back”)
3. Iambic tetrameter
4. Caesura - “An expert.” sharp full stop emphasises how much son values father’s expertise
5. Enjambment between stanzas - mimicks ploughs movement as it turns
6. “I stumbled” shift from focus on father to focus on son at beginning of fourth stanza

Question 4

Key Setting - Working rural environment

Answer 4

1. Complex series of images in first verse - presents father as ploughman at one with the land and the machinery he uses
2. Horse/plough/father are one machine - “shoulders” between shafts of plough and the furrow created
3. Naughtical imagery - shoulders are “globed like a full sale strung” as though ploughing waves - emphasises muscularity and wind catching shirt, plough is like bow of a ship
4. Horse strains “at clicking tongue” suggesting machine in action
5. Images of machinery “headrig”, “steel-pointed sock” and of toil “sweating team” reminds us of toil and sterngth

Question 5

Contrast Father with Young Child

(4 things)

Answer 5

1. Small son is clumsy, exuberant, demanding
2. contrast with highly skilled father, precise who can map the “furrow exactly” and also “sod rolled over without breaking”
3. Child follows “broad shadow” or rides on father’s back
4. Adoration - “I wanted to grow up and plough” - wanted to be like father, his strength and skill, also perhaps a model for masculinity
5. “I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,”
6. “Follow/In his broad shadow” - son is less than father; also foreshadows father’s decline; enjambent emphasises “follow” but also emphasises “broad shadow” - father is now a broad shadow of himself

Question 6

Key Technique - Movement of the Plough - quatrains and enjambment

Answer 6

1. Regular pattern of quatrains reflects the regular movement of the plough, up and down the field
2. Also emphasised by regular iambic tetrameter and emphasised by use of present participle -“dipping and rising”.
3. Reinforced by use of run on lines (enjambment) - from one line to another and once from one verse to another “with a single pluck/Of reins”, reflecting the continuity of the motion as the plough turns, the reader feels s/he is turning aslo, part of the “sweating team”

Question 7

It is my father who keeps stumbling/behind me and will not go away

Answer 7

1. Tone of lines suggests father is now a “nuisance” to son as son once was to his father - but what form is this nuisance?
2. Is son just irritated by father’s stumbling efforts as he has aged?
3. Does son feel inadequate because was not able to follow in father’s footsteps physically, not develop those skills and not live up to expectations - now father holds him to account
4. Father’s lost skill haunts the son.
5. Does son feel guilt at not choosing that path - father’s presence reminds him of this sense of inadequacy

Question 8

Rhythm of the Line

Answer 8

1. Iambic tetrameter with strong musicality and steady beat
2. Reflects regular rhythm of the steps of the horse, the “plod” of the farmer, the turning of the plough

Question 9

Context

(4 three things)

Answer 9

1. Heaney born into large Irish farming family
2. Nobel prize for literature 1995
3. Own experience of Irish rural world and connection to the soil is often presented in his poetry
4. References to land, ground, furrow, sod - some repeated, emphasising connection to agricultural environment

Question 10

Family Ties

(4 things)

Answer 10

1. Poem about relationship between father and son
2. Contrasts how this relationship has changed/reversed over time
3. About expectations of self within the family context
4. Family love, adoration, desire to emulate father

Question 11

Foreshadowing

Answer 11

1. “Hobnailed wake” - wake as nautical image, a trail left to follow, but also notion of a funeral wake foreshadows father’s decline