1. Summary
1.1. The poem describes the series of events which happened after the death of his death brother where instead of describing the accident and memorialising the dead child, he instead describes the way that others reacted to this tragedy.
1.2. The descriptions starts when he is at his school in the nurse's office, counting every single school bell waiting for the school day to end when he is brought home by his neighbours.
1.3. When he reaches home, he is greeted by an image of his father crying at the porch which was unusual because he was always a rather less emotional person at funerals. He then meets Big Jim Evans, who said it was a big loss to the family.
1.4. After he has stepped through the door, he meets several neighbouring families as well as old men who came and shook his hands.
1.5. Those men said they were sorry for the loss of the death child and the main speaker character can hear others whispering and saying that he was the oldest child who was away at school. Meanwhile, he holds his mother's hands.
1.6. He noticed that his mother wasn't crying but she was letting out sighs of anger. At ten o'clock, the bandaged corpse delivered to the house, all wrapped up.
1.7. The next morning, the main character went up to the room where the body lays, where the atmosphere is full of sorrow and grief and he gets to see his brother's corpse for the first time, and he was paler than before.
1.8. Then there was a description of the dead corpse where euphemism was used to decrease the sinisterness of the situation.
2. Structure
2.1. The poem has no specific rhyme scheme or rhythm however, a full rhyme is used in the last two lines.
2.2. The poem was written from a 1st person perspective - being the poet when he was younger.
3. Figures of speech
3.1. Alliteration
3.1.1. 'Counting bells knelling classes to a close'
3.1.1.1. 'Knelling' is an onomatopoeia of the sound of funeral bells
3.1.1.2. The word 'knelling' is an onomatopoeia of the sound of funeral bells.
3.1.2. In literature, alliteration is the conspicuous repetition of identical initial consonant sounds in successive or closely associated syllables within a group of words, even those spelled differently. As a method of linking words for effect, alliteration is also called head rhyme or initial rhyme.
3.2. Euphemism
3.2.1. A mild or indirect word or expression substituted for one considered to be too harsh or blunt when referring to something unpleasant or embarrassing.
3.2.2. 'hard blow' and 'sorry for my trouble'
3.2.2.1. These euphemisms were used both as a method of expressing the sympathy of the others but also to avoid directly mentioning the death of Christopher.
3.2.2.2. The word 'hard blow' is also ironic since the child was killed by a car.
3.3. Juxtaposition
3.3.1. Juxtaposition is an act or instance of placing two elements close together or side by side. This is often done in order to compare/contrast the two, to show similarities or differences, etc.
4. Key Quotes Analysis
4.1. 'Coughing out angry tearless sighs'
4.1.1. This shows that she feels uneasy and along with the usage of juxtaposition and the usage of such words and adjectives with great contrasts, the poet describes how she is puzzled doesn't know how to feel.
4.2. 'Snowdrops and candles soothed the bedside'
4.2.1. This is because the bedside where the corpse is lying next to is now associated with a sense of pain, the pleasant, hopeful image of snowdrops and candles is used as a method of somehow decreasing the sinful side of the situation.
4.3. 'He lay in the four foot box as in a cot.'
4.3.1. This is a horrific comparison through the usage of juxtaposition where the poet compares the corpse of the boy lying in a coffin as if the boy was lying in a cot (baby bed)
4.4. 'A four foot box, a foot for every year. '
4.4.1. This is also a disturbing description with the usage of the coffin, where the poet describes the size of the coffin relative to the number of years the boy lived (being his age).
4.5. 'I sat all morning in the college sick bay'
4.5.1. A sense of isolation has already been developed from the beginning of the poem.
4.6. 'The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram'
4.6.1. This shows that babies are less aware of the death and are not capable of having such strong emotions towards the situation.
4.7. 'Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, away at school'
4.7.1. This poignant idea expressed by the poet could be interpreted as if others were trying to set some guilt onto young Heaney since he wasn't there when his brother was killed.
4.8. 'With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurse'
4.8.1. Aside from the literally meaning of the descriptions being that the corpse is bandaged by the nurse to prevent further bleeding, the metaphor of someone being 'stanched and bandaged' also means that they are stripped of the sense of humanity within the body.
4.8.2. The usage of the word 'the corpse' shows that the poet now feels an emotional disconnection with the body of his dead brother.
4.9. 'I saw him, for the first time in six weeks, paler now'
4.9.1. This shows that the poet was away in a boarding school when the incident happened, and now that he is home, an image of his brother in the past still stayed in his mind and therefore there is a disturbing comparison between the dead corpse and that image.
4.10. 'Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple'
4.10.1. The word 'wearing' suggests that the injury is merely temporary and that it will fade soon.
5. The title of the poem is 'Mid-term break' which is rather joyful as it is a time of enjoyment, while the poem touches more on a sense of grief.
6. The feelings of young Heaney
6.1. Guilty
6.1.1. 'I saw him for the first time in six weeks, paler now'
6.1.2. 'Whispers informed the strangers I'm the eldest, away at school'
6.2. Confused
6.2.1. 'My mother held my hand in hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.'
6.2.2. 'In the porch I met my father crying, he had always taken funerals in his stride'
6.3. Comforted
6.3.1. 'Snowdrops and candles soothed the bedside'
6.4. Embarrassed
6.4.1. 'When I came in, and I was embarrassed by old men standing up to shake my hand'
6.5. Isolated
6.5.1. 'I sat all morning in the college sick bay'
6.6. Emotionally disconnected with Christopher
6.6.1. 'At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived with the corpse'
6.6.2. 'He lay in the four foot box as in his cot'