Out Of The Bag

Question 1

Title

Answer 1

Use of idioms, theme of secrets

Question 2

‘All of use came in Doctor Kerlin’s bag’

Answer 2

Power, God like, myth, secrecy

- childhood experiences on siblings being born

Question 3

What don’t we hear about?

Answer 3

The mother 
- power class gender

Question 4

Long lists of

Answer 4

Adjectives without commas - sense of overwhelming

Question 5

Enjambment

Answer 5

Gives even simpler phrases a more disorienting slant

Question 6

Frequent use of metaphor and simile

Answer 6

Trying to explain world around him (repetition of figurative language throughout part one)
- Morris comparisons

Question 7

Reminiscing

Answer 7

In extreme detail

Question 8

Langurs switches between

Answer 8

Highly complex and simple

Question 9

How many distinct sections?

Answer 9

Four

Question 10

What language is used in the first three stanzas of part 2?

Answer 10

‘Academic’ language

- meter and rhythm is more constant

Question 11

First and last lines of each stanza are in

Answer 11

Iambic pentameter

Question 12

As part 2 continues the

Answer 12

Rhythm and meter becomes less formalised just as the language and ideas become more mythological and conceptual

Question 13

Frequent enjambment

Answer 13

Adds to slightly disorientating feel of complex language - end stopped lines

Question 14

Use of iambic pentameter and

Answer 14

Trochaic tretameter

Question 15

Part one setting

Answer 15

Strong sense of time and place ‘scullery basin’

Question 16

Setting in prt one echoed in part 4

Answer 16

‘Sheets out on for the doctor’ ‘the new wee baby’

Question 17

Heaney writes with his

Answer 17

Own voice in the poem

Question 18

Comparison between doctor jerking and hygeia

Answer 18

‘Darken the door and leave’

‘The undarkening door’

Question 19

Sound

Answer 19

Assonance, consonance, alliteration, sibilance and internal rhyme
‘Nosy rosy’ ‘unsibbed, unwinding’

Question 20

Part 2 sound quotes

Answer 20

Technical and ritual

Question 21

Part three sound

Answer 21

‘Midday, mid - mat’

Question 22

Part 4 sound

Answer 22

‘Usual and useful’

Question 23

Key themes

Answer 23

Secrecy, new life, childhood, religion, mythologies, owner dynamics, healing, origins

Question 24

What does the poem deal with?

Answer 24

How Heaney’s childhood misconceptions as to where he and his siblings came from led to him questioning his human origins in the philosophical sense throughout the rest of his life

Question 25

Heaney’s answer

Answer 25

Truth is not found in complex myths and shrines but in the ordinary

Question 26

Doctor Kerlins power

Answer 26

Link to education

- religion secrecy

Question 27

Limited power of the

Answer 27

Poet

Question 28

Powerlessness if the reader

Answer 28

Paradox that the poet nor the reader has power

Question 29

Physical power

Answer 29

Third and second sections

Question 30

Decisive power of doctor

Answer 30

Energetic and action versus Heaney’s helplessness

Question 31

Heaney’s mother’s

Answer 31

No introduction of name or any information about her

Question 32

Original sense of powerlessness

Answer 32

Ultimate shift in final stanza

Question 33

Healing

Answer 33

Religion as a method of healing

- contrast with focus of technical and scientific medicines of Kerlin

Question 34

Physical barriers

Answer 34

‘Locked room’ ‘steamed up glass’

Question 35

Poignancy of

Answer 35

Taboo leading to mother not being able to claim ‘triumph’ for herself

Question 36

Ironically his physical origins are

Answer 36

‘Standing the passage of time’ whereas Epidaurus is an archaeological site

Question 37

‘Hallucination’

Answer 37

Similar to vision of end of part one

Question 38

‘Hygeia’

Answer 38

Reference to ‘incubato’ dream

Question 39

‘Incubating for real’

Answer 39

Sleeps when ephiphany occurs realisation

Question 40

Power shift at the end

Answer 40

Finally hearing the mother sleep - hear her voice assume who he is talking about

Question 41

Who ends up having the power?

Answer 41

The mother she is active literally in the birth and in other terms