Alliteration In Mid Term Break

Seamus Heaney’s Mid-Term Break and The Early Purges are poems that reflect themes of death and change by focusing on significant events of Heaney’s childhood. In Mid-Term Break, Heaney recollects upon the funeral of his younger brother, Christopher, during his adolescence, portraying his gradual acceptance of death. Conversely, The Early Purges illustrates his childhood naïveté when he witnesses the necessary death of animals as a young boy.

Mid-Term Break depicts the gradual change of his feelings from mourning to shock, to anger, and finally to acceptance of death. It has a total of eight stanzas, each stanza a tercet. However, the last stanza only consists of one line – the switch from the consistency brings attention to the shift from Heaney’s constant repudiation to the acknowledgement of the death, and also inducing sympathy. Heaney creates a suspenseful atmosphere and keeps the identity of the victim secret until the end, which shows the final point of his denial of the death.

Heaney uses a lexical field of death and alliteration to create a sorrowful

Euphemism is exhibited when Big Jim Evans says “it was a hard blow”, an implicit metaphor to refer to both the overwhelming emotional state of the family, and the cause of the death, which is revealed in the second last stanza. Seeing his “father crying” could appear shocking and unusual to Heaney, as parents are usually stoical role models. Similarly, his mother “held my hand in hers”; the reverse of roles emphasise the abnormality of the situation. The baby “cooed and laughed”, suggesting that the baby is innocent while exemplifying the unmindfulness and ignorance one can have when young. This contrast to the sombre atmosphere creates an uneasy feeling, suggesting the poet feels delusional. “When I came in” is put onto a separate line, to emphasise how detached and devastated Heaney feels amongst the others because of the