Response to "Mid-Term Break" by Seamus Heaney
"No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four-foot box, a foot for every year"
One theme for the poem "Mid-Term Break" is that tragedies can happen anytime without notice. "Mid-Term Break" is a poem that expresses sadness over the sudden loss of a younger brother, expressing mixed feelings of confusion, awkwardness, and sadness.
In the poem, Heaney portrays confusion and awkwardness with a handful of lines filled with imagery, mainly the lines in the sixth and seventh stanza. An example that supports this theme, "Snowdrops and candles soothed the bedside; I saw him for the first time in six weeks" (line 16-18) talks about how the narrator observes his little brother's corpse after six weeks. The imagery presented creates an awkward atmosphere since it seems like the narrator only stands there and observes the corpse, feeling sad and confused as to how his brother had died. An example from the seventh stanza, "Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, he lay in the four-foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars," (lines 19-21) gives the readers a large clue about his brother's age while providing more imagery about the body rather than its surroundings, continuing the mood from the previous stanza. From these lines, it seems as if the narrator starts to understand how his brother died, erasing a bit of his confusion. Both the sixth and seventh stanzas express the feelings of sadness and awkwardness form the way the narrator seems to try to make sense of the sudden death, conveying the message that tragedies can happen anytime without notice.
A four-foot box, a foot for every year"
One theme for the poem "Mid-Term Break" is that tragedies can happen anytime without notice. "Mid-Term Break" is a poem that expresses sadness over the sudden loss of a younger brother, expressing mixed feelings of confusion, awkwardness, and sadness.
In the poem, Heaney portrays confusion and awkwardness with a handful of lines filled with imagery, mainly the lines in the sixth and seventh stanza. An example that supports this theme, "Snowdrops and candles soothed the bedside; I saw him for the first time in six weeks" (line 16-18) talks about how the narrator observes his little brother's corpse after six weeks. The imagery presented creates an awkward atmosphere since it seems like the narrator only stands there and observes the corpse, feeling sad and confused as to how his brother had died. An example from the seventh stanza, "Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, he lay in the four-foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars," (lines 19-21) gives the readers a large clue about his brother's age while providing more imagery about the body rather than its surroundings, continuing the mood from the previous stanza. From these lines, it seems as if the narrator starts to understand how his brother died, erasing a bit of his confusion. Both the sixth and seventh stanzas express the feelings of sadness and awkwardness form the way the narrator seems to try to make sense of the sudden death, conveying the message that tragedies can happen anytime without notice.
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