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Seamus Heaney Follower Analysis

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Seamus Heaney 's poem and childhood recollection, Follower, depicts the admiration and respect he feels towards his father. Throughout the poem, the vivid description of his father working the fields goes from displaying Heaney’s idolization to expressing his numerous shortfallings to live up to his father 's legacy. With the extensive use of multi-sensual imagery and the use of a half rhyming scheme to create a more conversational feel, a deeper connection can be made with the reader. Furthermore, the use of numerous words found in the lexical field of farming, such as “sock” or “sod” not only help set the tone of the poem but also emphasize that to this young narrator, his world revolves around the life of farming.

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With the focus shifted to Heaney, and his constant self-disapproval, Heaney describes his clumsiness, showing what antipodes he and his father are. HIs father walking the land with ease could symbolize the effortlessness emitted by his father in everyday life, whereas Heaney has struggled more with the minor bumps in the orad. When he refers to his father carrying him on his shoulders, the reader can take this in a metaphorical sense, as well as literally. Heaney lack of expertise makes him feel as though he is a burden on his father, weighing him down. Having the sea metaphor yet again when Heaney speaks about eh “dipping and rising” of his father 's stride, not only can the reader picture the wave like movement of his father, but it also mirrors the folds and rolling mounds of earth in the fields. The internal rhyming used between “follow” and “shadow” helps to reflect the heaviness and slowness of Heaney walking belongside his father showing that is unprosperousness causes his father to be held back, while also causing Heaney to struggle. Actually using the word “follow” again refers to the two meanings to the world. Even though in this context he is walking around with his Father, it could imply that Heaney never aided his father in anyway; he observed but never contributed in useful means. Furthermore, describing his father 's shadow can also be taken two ways. For one thing, describing the shadow as “broad” can symbolise the large shoes he need to fill to live up to his father. However, it could also refer to the fact that there are many aspects that his father is disappointed in him for. This inadequacy felt by Heaney can also be portrayed by the idea that his father “shadow” refers to Heaney being beneath him, or viewed as inferior by his father. Heaney continues to self insult when he openly admits that he constantly fell and babbled while in the

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