Punishment | Seamus Heaney Flashcards
‘I can feel the tug’
Speaker is trying to imagine/sympathize with the girl
‘Halter at the nape’
Halter associated with restraining an animal | dehumanizing
‘Naked front’
She is vulnerable | gives impression that she was stripped of her clothing | humiliated
‘Frail rigging of her ribs’
Nautical imagery | shows her fragility
‘I can see her drowned’
Speaker is again trying to sympathise, returning his personal response. As if he himself has seen such barbaric acts | further referencing the sea and the overpowering nature of the waves
‘Weighing stone’
Further shows the horrific and torturous nature of her death
‘Barked sapling’
Reference to her youth and her lack of opportunity to bloom
‘Her blindfold’
Losing sight takes away her sense/connection to the world | disorientating + dehumanising
‘Her noose a ring’
Enjambment placed emphasis on ‘ring’ | contrast between permanence of the noose and the bond of love/marriage
‘Before they punished you’
Men/male dominated society
‘You were’
Past tense - again is trying to imagine her life before she was an archeological study
‘Undernourished’
Suggests she was treated unfairly before death
‘My poor scapegoat’
Acknowledges the misplaced blame that society had inflicted upon her
‘I almost love you’
Unusual declaration of love here - corpse is obviously stirring something personal within the speaker
‘Stones of silence’
Speaker admitting that they too would be a product of this harsh society and inflict pain on her
‘Artful voyeur’
Does this poem bear some personal gain for the speaker? Are they looking for redemption
‘Brains exposed’
Referencing the fact she is now dug up and exposed in a different way, is this another degrading act?
‘I who have stood dumb’
Speaker reinforces their experience in northern Ireland | highlights the idea that the speaker (and others) would often choose not to intervene
‘Civilised outrage’
Even objections to such terrible events were suppressed - had to limit their views to within their own homes
‘Tribal, intimate revenge’
Speaker is suggesting that the violent acts in northern Ireland were uncivilised and brutal | animalistic nature of the torture inflicted on the body
