Summer Of Lost Rachel

Question 1

Context

Answer 1

1987 Haw Lantern.

Deeply evocative recollection of coping with the aching grief and loss after the death of the poets youthful relative whose “whited face” rendered a whole season of life and positively a season of grief and loss.

Heart wrenching experience of small and fragile heart beating from “little less to nothing”- epitomises how a fragile life cut short can lead to a helpless lifetime of “downpours” of grief and loss.

Nice age 9 who was knocked of her bicycle by a passing vehicle near the family farm and killed may 1985.

Question 2

Structure and form

Answer 2

Elegy comprised of nine emotionally charged quatrains.

Voice of speaker poignantly capturing reflective aftermath of death in the perspective of a relative who “yearned” for the life of the little girl in a state of grief.

State of acceptance- final two quatrains
Regularity of quatrains captures inevitability of the cyclical nature of life but also gives a sense of the process towards acceptance which must be a journey taken in steps.

Each quatrain representing step towards acceptance.

Question 3

Title

Answer 3

Summer- associations with life, light, vitality, joy

Paradoxical image lost euphemism expressing a sense of grief that Heaney feels lost thought death.

Title conveys a conflict between the innocence and joy of summer and the feeling of loss and grief of death.

Especially if one so young so young “lost Rachel”

Question 4

Tone

Answer 4

Tone of grief and loss and sadness “broke down last May when we laid you out”

Reflective tone “yearned to run the film back”

“Gash from the accident creates a blunt tone showing the stark reality of the accident and the sense of shock.

Contrats with the more gentle tone of “wavers and tugs dreamily as soft plumed water weed” which is soothing and comforting.

End of poem adopts a more philosophical tone “which temps out gaze and quietens it” suggesting acceptance.

Question 5

Form and structure

Answer 5

Elegy- written to someone who has died
9 quatrains
Quatrains 1 and 2- present tense setting the scene of summer that has been and of the events of the previous may structure- enjambment.

Irregular rhythm- makes frequent use of half rhyme in each quatrain in 2nd and 4th lines in quatrains 1-7 “appear” “briar”. Creates slightly jarring Effect of the tragedy of accident in summer.

Rhymes become full rhymes in last two quatrains where the tone becomes more philosophical and accepting the loss.

Caesura In quatrain 8 “but no, so let the downpours flood” brings the reader suddenly back to the reality of grief and a forced acceptance of the loss.

Question 6

Unobstructive personification of summer as a largesse

Answer 6

Disturbing diety losing the confidence of worshipers magnifies the demoralisation of the family in their reaction to the death.

The moment is identified as a terminal one.

Even confidence in the rhythms of nature breaks Down. This reaction seems very different from the stoicism or indifference of the farm people at the end of “out out” who decide to carry on with their affairs.

Question 7

Imagery of potential nature

Answer 7

Potato crops flowering
Poingnant signs or images of life.
Everything blooming contrasted with Rachel’s v tragic death.
Verb choice flowering- connotations of life- more upsetting.
Potato crops act as symbol for children as they are full of potential and new growth just like Rachel.
Potatoes and plums have not fully grown or ripened. This links to the loss of potential of Rachel, whose young life is cut short. We will only be able to imagine. “The life you might have led”

Question 8

Hard green plums appear

Answer 8

Assonance throughout

Green- spring and summer idea of growth life vitality- further emphasises the life making her death more tragic.

Question 9

Peaceful scene in first stanza

Answer 9

Speaking directly to Rachel through use of direct address- personal pronoun.

Question 10

Alliteration “berried briar”

Answer 10

Colloquialism for a shrub.
Alliteration is plosive- prepares us for shock to come- hints at shock despite lovely scene.
Forceful along with the pun on “buried” hints at the death that is to come- foreshadowing.

Question 11

Atmospheres

Answer 11

Heaney creates calm and summer scene as a backdrop to the accident reinforcing how sudden and tragic it was.

Question 12

Enjambment and internal rhyme

Answer 12

“Glittering and dripping”- highlights beauty of the raindrops but immediately juxtaposed with images of flooding and saturation “dripping” then “showers” contrast “plot down” from one extreme to the other.

All of a sudden explosive- like Rachel’s death. Because of this flooding he cannot appreciate the beauty of summer because of connotations it has now that she has died.

Pathetic fallacy representing his grief and despair as an uncle. These highlight the extent of the rain that summer and suggest tests of grief.

Water is also suggestive of baptism and renewal- which links to the last quatrains is the poem and the imagery of the river bed, where the tone is more philosophical.

Question 13

“Flooded hay and flooding drills”

Answer 13

Parallelism- repetition of flooding images- contrasts with the original peaceful scenery seen in stanza 1.

Question 14

“Glittering and dripping” “ring around the moon”

Answer 14

Eerie image generated, ominous, warns of extreme change- suggests there is a storm approaching- ring is created by ice particles in the upper atmosphere.

Suggest childish innocence/ angelic imagery.

The ring around the moon- halo but also omen foreshadowing death.

Question 15

“Everyone” collective pronoun-l

Answer 15

Suggests a sense of community. There is a sense of mistrust now “yet everyone is loath/ to trust the rains soft soaping ways and sentiments of growth”

We can’t be fooled into thinking that all is well in summer anymore.

That is merely “soft soap” or “sentiments”.

Use of sibilance creates a tone of cynicism or resentment.

Question 16

Change in tone

Answer 16

Quatrain 4
Trust of summer gone “broke down”
Since rechecks death.
Juxtaposition of summers potential/ promise and the funeral “unstinting largess” and “we laid you out”.

Question 17

Repetition “In white, your whited face”

Answer 17

Death and innocence.

Also and allusion to the painting of “Ophelia” by sir John Everett Millais- highlighting the tragic loss.

Question 18

“Gashed from the accident”

Answer 18

Harsh reality of the death and tone of sadness reinforced with sibilance and repetition of “still”.

Question 19

Preparation and laying out of the body

Answer 19

Reference to preparation and laying out of the body- followed by image of merciless setting sun, a metaphor for both the little girls death and in the choice of adjective, it’s finality.

Natural reaction to loss- is allowed in the poem but only in the “merciless” light of that setting sun. An image from cinematography is used in an attempt to create and alternative story in which Rachel is “safe and sound” and all the dreadful and distressing details are edited out.

Question 20

“Setting sun and merciless”

Answer 20

Symbolic of the end of life
Grief highlighted through the sibilant sounds again.
Adds a tone of helplessness.

Question 21

“Every merciful register”

Answer 21

Is positioned immediately after the reference to the “merciless” sun and the attempt to inevitably ends in the only possible reaction.

The acceptance of death and loss.

This is conveyed decisively through the brief abbreviated sentence “but no”.

Poem finalises itself in a more composed reaction.

Acceptance of reality is explicitly confirmed.

“So let the downpours flood our memory’s riverbed”.

Question 22

“Running film back”

Answer 22

Change to visual image of running “the film back” to the time of the accident.

Film is a metaphor for memory but also suggests that it still doesn’t seem real.

The film of the memory rewrites the events of the day of the accident “twisted spokes all straightened out” the awful skid marks gone” in an attempt to erase the tragedy.

Question 23

“But no”

Answer 23

Creates finality.

Blunt and to the point.

Reality remains “so let the downpours flood” here the speaker allows grief to watch over him. Suggesting acceptance. The speaker compares memories to a riverbed in which memories of Rachel’s life are “soft plumped waterweed” that float dreamily and catch our attention.

The memory of her is a comfort that “tempts our gaze and quietens it” the use of “dreamily” and alliteration of “w” sounds suggest a tone of tranquil acceptance. The gentleness is this language contrasts with the earlier harshness “gash.

Question 24

Final line “ recollects our need”

Answer 24

alludes to the philosophy of Plato who defined “recollection” as “memory discovered in the soul” and “need” as the “mother of love”

Suggests that loss: grief allows us to evoke the experience of love.

Thinking of Rachel’s memory and the “life you might have led” can lead to a loving memory.