“Digging” Analysis Essay

In homophiley families, fathers take pride in receiving remarks regarding their sons such as Hes a chip off the ol block or similar father like son, often exalting the sons who have followed in their fathers vocational footsteps. In Digging, by Seamus Heaney, the verbaliser describes the quintessential white potato farming custom that his father and grandfather partake in, while the loudspeaker system himself observes by means of a window barrier. Seamus Heaney, through his use of imagery, repetition, and extended metaphors, reveals his feelings in straying away from Irish tradition to follow his own path in writing.In his poem, Heaney utilizes imagery to further emphasize the speakers action in choosing a different job than potato farming. The speaker begins at a windowsill, with a squat pen resting as snug as a gun in his hand. Heaneys rendering connotes a sense of defense, almost as if the narrator sees himself as an old wilderness-survival junkie, sitting on the porch with a gun to defend his property from government officials, but in Digging, the speaker defends his choice in jobs. afterward on in the poem, the speaker describes the actions of a potato harvester, who must endure the cold smell of potato mold and the squelch and slap of soggy peat. Heaneys images of mold and soggy mud convey the speakers true feeling and apprehension toward the sickening, gross environment in which his father and grandfather work.In the same way, Heaneys repetition further alludes to the speakers need and desire to write. In the foremost and last stanzas of the poem, the speaker repeats the same sentence Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests. As a starting point in the poem, the speaker directly jumps to his comfort zonedescribing his love for position pen to paper, yet as an ending note, the narrator reemphasizes his possession of not only the pen, but of his living choices.Also, Heaney often uses the parole digging as a separate prepositional ph rase during a sentence, reiterating the word to simply give the reader a sense of the mundane life his father is living. There atomic number 18 no adverbs surrounding the word simply put, the speaker evokes a sense of nothingness that is associated with digging a hole in the groundwork, only to fill said hole with a potato and cover it sticker upa menial task for which he has no inclination. Again, Heaney repeats some phrases in order to emphasize his aversion to the job of potato harvesting.Lastly, Heaney implements extended metaphors throughout his poem to subtly convey his feelings towards his fathers tradition. As stated earlier, the repetition of digging also connotes a deeper meaningthe speaker, while also sight his father literally dig through the mud and peat, figuratively digs through his memories of his family, recalling the days when he would help his grandfather out in Toners bog.In the second to last verse, the speaker alludes to revisiting the retiring(a) by stat ing the living roots awaken in my head. The roots, although they can refer to the physical roots in the ground, symbolize the narrators family roots in potato farming, a culture that is associated with digging into the ground to find food and money in the form of potatoes. In the end, the speaker ends the metaphor of digging, noting he leave behind dig, but not with the spade, but with his pen.Seamus Heaneys poem Digging tells a tale of a man musing astir(predicate) his decision to leave behind family convention. Heaney employs a series of images that convey the speakers feelings, repetition to show the narrators dislike of potato harvesting, and metaphors to provide an underlying message about tradition. In the end, the speaker is left commenting on the spade, his father and grandfathers tool of choice, while he himself chooses the pen.