Out Of The Bag Flashcards
Title
Use of idioms, theme of secrets
‘All of use came in Doctor Kerlin’s bag’
Power, God like, myth, secrecy
- childhood experiences on siblings being born
What don’t we hear about?
The mother - power class gender
Long lists of
Adjectives without commas - sense of overwhelming
Enjambment
Gives even simpler phrases a more disorienting slant
Frequent use of metaphor and simile
Trying to explain world around him (repetition of figurative language throughout part one)
- Morris comparisons
Reminiscing
In extreme detail
Langurs switches between
Highly complex and simple
How many distinct sections?
Four
What language is used in the first three stanzas of part 2?
‘Academic’ language
- meter and rhythm is more constant
First and last lines of each stanza are in
Iambic pentameter
As part 2 continues the
Rhythm and meter becomes less formalised just as the language and ideas become more mythological and conceptual
Frequent enjambment
Adds to slightly disorientating feel of complex language - end stopped lines
Use of iambic pentameter and
Trochaic tretameter
Part one setting
Strong sense of time and place ‘scullery basin’
Setting in prt one echoed in part 4
‘Sheets out on for the doctor’ ‘the new wee baby’
Heaney writes with his
Own voice in the poem
Comparison between doctor jerking and hygeia
‘Darken the door and leave’
‘The undarkening door’
Sound
Assonance, consonance, alliteration, sibilance and internal rhyme
‘Nosy rosy’ ‘unsibbed, unwinding’
Part 2 sound quotes
Technical and ritual
Part three sound
‘Midday, mid - mat’
Part 4 sound
‘Usual and useful’
Key themes
Secrecy, new life, childhood, religion, mythologies, owner dynamics, healing, origins
What does the poem deal with?
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
Heaney’s answer
Truth is not found in complex myths and shrines but in the ordinary
Doctor Kerlins power
Link to education
- religion secrecy
Limited power of the
Poet
Powerlessness if the reader
Paradox that the poet nor the reader has power
Physical power
Third and second sections
Decisive power of doctor
Energetic and action versus Heaney’s helplessness
Heaney’s mother’s
No introduction of name or any information about her
Original sense of powerlessness
Ultimate shift in final stanza
Healing
Religion as a method of healing
- contrast with focus of technical and scientific medicines of Kerlin
Physical barriers
‘Locked room’ ‘steamed up glass’
Poignancy of
Taboo leading to mother not being able to claim ‘triumph’ for herself
Ironically his physical origins are
‘Standing the passage of time’ whereas Epidaurus is an archaeological site
‘Hallucination’
Similar to vision of end of part one
‘Hygeia’
Reference to ‘incubato’ dream
‘Incubating for real’
Sleeps when ephiphany occurs realisation
Power shift at the end
Finally hearing the mother sleep - hear her voice assume who he is talking about
Who ends up having the power?
The mother she is active literally in the birth and in other terms
