Review of the poem 'Mid- term Break'

Review of the poem 'Mid- term Break'

“Mid-term break” written by Seamus Heaney is an elegy, a lamentation on an untimely death of a beloved person. The narrator could be a small child. So the whole scene is presented in the eye-corner of him. The poet has been able to visualise the emotional side of this sudden death. In addition, he takes the members of the family, how they have been bereaved over this loss.

The flow of the situations have been fabricated excellently in order to construct a very story live-experience of the reader. A bereaved occasion of a family could be the sole objective of the poet. It is quite evident that the poet has been able to achieve that particular goal.

For this purpose, the poet uses a diction which derives a sense of sorrow and remorse. For example such as,

    “father crying…..”

    “taken funerals in his stride”

    “a hard blow”

    “In hers and coughed out angry tear less sighs”

   “the corpse, stanched and bandaged…….”

   “lay in the four foot box”

These expressions also contribute to build up the mental picture of the dead body. The poet also brings the imagery of father and mother, into the scene. Both have been stricken by the death.

   “In the porch, I met my father crying”

   “….as my mother held my hand in hers and coughed out angry tear less sighs”

The poet also focuses at the incident of narrator. The poet very carefully presents the incident to the extent the little boy has access to it.  For example,

“counting bells knelling”

This shows how anxious he was until the school was over. On the other hand, the narrator is too small to pose himself as a man who is directed by some of responsibility. When the narrator brings the image of the dead body, he is quite euphemistic.

 “He lay in the four foot box as in his cot”

This shows the narrator’s love and affection towards his departed brother. Nowhere in the poem, the poet uses the word ‘death’ even though he talks about the death of a child. Only in one instance, he uses the word corpse while mainly uses other words and phrases such as, ‘funerals’, ’hard blow’, ‘trouble’, ‘ambulance’ and ‘snowdrops’ and ‘ candles’.

 

Mid-term Break

Mid-term Break

I sat all morning in the college sick bay

Counting bells knelling classes to a close

At two o’ clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying-

He had always taken funerals in his stride

And big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram

When I came in, and I was embarrassed

By old men standing up to shake my hand.

And tell me they were sorry for my trouble

Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest

Away at school, as my mother held my hand.

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs

At ten o’ clock the ambulance arrived

With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up to the room, Snowdrops

And candles soothed the beside; I saw him

For the first time in six weeks. Paler now

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple

He lay in the four foot box as in his cot

No gaudy scares, the bumper knocked him clear

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Seamus Heaney