Mid Term Break Essay

The main theme in “Mid-Term Break” is about death about Seamus’ younger brother and is written in a form of a lyric poem and is written retrospectively. From the title of the poem, we think that the poem is going to be related with something to do with holidays as the word ‘break’ is usually related to holidays/timeout although, in the second sentence of the first stanza, we realize that the tone of the poem is different to what the is title in the phrase “Counting bells knelling” we realize the bells are correlated with the word; “knelling”, is a sound made by a bell rung slowly and is usually associated with death. This implies that also, the use of internal rhyme with the words “bell” and “knell” emphasizes the tragic event that has happened.

This signifies that his mother has cried so much that there is not left to do and this conveys a sense of hopelessness for the family. Also the second sentence of that stanza starts off with a precise point in which is “ten o’clock the ambulance arrived”. This creates confusion for the reader as we don’t know if it's the same day or if it's the day after. This is linked to the final line of that stanza in which, Heaney denies the death of his brother in the phrase “With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses”. This implies that, Heaney is trying to escape from reality and that he can’t think of his brother anymore but thinks of it as

From the title of the poem, we can see that Dickinson has revealed to the reader instantly, that the poem is going to be dull and gloomy as she uses the word ‘death’ and is often associated with the loss of someone close. In the second line of the first stanza, we notice that death has been personified in the phrase “He kindly stopped for me“. This could imply that the author was calm as she accepted death.

Dickinson uses juxtaposition when describing immortality in the phrase “And Immortality”. This makes us refer back to the concept of death, where death is an idea where it shouldn’t be feared but instead is something that goes on forever. Dickinson uses a dash, after the word ‘Ourselves’ in the phrase “The carriage held but just Ourselves- And Immortality”, to signify a dramatic pause, which creates awareness for the reader, suggesting that there is more to be said as there isn’t a full stop to end the sentence to finish her point, or to possibly prolong the sentence to slow down the pace of the