Transcript Field Of Vision - mrbanksbluevale

“Field Of Vision”
A Poem By Seamus Heaney
Biography
•
Seamus Heaney was born in April 1939 in
Ireland
•
He grew up on a small farm in the County Derry
where his father was involved in cattle herding
•
When he was twelve, he won a scholarship to
attend St. Columb’s College, a catholic boarding
school, where he was taught Irish and Latin
•
He wrote his first poems as a young teacher in
Belfast in the early 1960s
•
Heaney is considered part of the “Northern
School”, a group of Irish writers who were born
amid the political and religious dividing lines of
Northern Ireland
•
In 1966, his first major volume was published
Death of a Naturalist and another landmark
publication was his book North published in 1975
•
Over the course of his career, Heaney wrote over
20 volumes of poetry and criticism
•
He taught at Harvard University (1985-2006) and
was Oxford Professor of Poetry (1989-1994)
•
He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995
•
He died in 2013 at the age of 74
(*Sources The Poetry Foundation and Nobelprize.org)
I remember this woman who sat for years
In a wheelchair, looking straight ahead
Out the window at sycamore trees unleafing
And leafing at the far end of the lane.
Straight out past the TV in the corner,
The stunted, agitated hawthorn bush,
The same small calves with their backs to wind and
rain,
The same acre of ragwort, the same mountain.
She was steadfast as the big window itself.
Her brow was clear as the chrome bits of the chair.
She never lamented once and she never
Carried a spare ounce of emotional weight.
Face to face with her was an education
Of the sort you got across a well-braced gate -One of those lean, clean, iron, roadside ones
Between two whitewashed pillars, where you could see
Deeper into the country than you expected
And discovered that the field behind the hedge
Grew more distinctly strange as you kept standing
Focused and drawn in by what barred the way.
Introduction /
Statement of Theme
• In Seamus Heaney’s “Field of Vision”, a speaker
observes a woman in a wheel chair staring out her
window at far fields connecting the poem to larger
themes of education and perception.
• The poem reveals the way people look at the world
influences how they feel about it and themselves.
Sound
Heaney uses clear, plain-spoken language, creating an atmosphere of “story-telling” in
this poem, beginning with the opening line, “I remember this woman who sat for years”
which suggests the poem’s speaker is relating a personal anecdote
•
But this is not to say the diction is ordinary as the poem utilizes a variety of sound
devices:
1.
Alliteration – “the same small calves with their backs to wind…” or “Her brow was clear as the chrome bits
of the chair”
2.
Assonance – “One of those lean, clean, iron, roadside ones/ between” or “The stunted, agitated hawthorn
bush”
3.
Consonance – “…steadfast as the big window itself.”
4.
Internal rhyme and Repetition – “The same, small calves with their backs to wind and / rain, / the same
acre…”
All of these sound devices attract a reader’s eye and ear to individual lines emphasizing
“Field of Vision” is a poem, a work of literature composed of lines and sounds and
corresponding images, and not simply a fanciful memory without artistic merit.
Imagery
•
The dominant image in “Field of Vision” is of a woman in a wheel chair confined to a
room with a television but who spends the majority of her time staring out a window.
•
The speaker says “She was steadfast as the big window itself ” and “Her brow was clear
as the chrome bits of the chair”. Both are examples of concrete images and metaphors.
•
The first metaphor compares the woman to the window suggesting her routine was
unwavering and her presence predictable as if she were just another object placed beside
the window itself when the speaker happened to walk past.
•
The second metaphor compares her brow or facial expression to the “clear chrome” of
the wheel-chair as if she was content to be just gazing out the window, not worried or
frustrated or resentful of being confined to her wheel-chair, which is an idea reinforced
in the next lines of the poem, “She never lamented once and she never / Carried a spare
ounce of emotional weight.”
Imagery (Cont.)
This image of a woman in a wheel chair, content to be gazing out a
window, is then contrasted with the pastoral or idyllic country setting in the
poem.
• “sycamore trees unleafing / And leafing at the far end of the lane”
• “the same small calves with their backs to the wind and / rain”
• “The same acre of ragwort, the same mountain.”
(*ragwort is a yellow flowering weed)
This contrast between the woman in a wheel-chair staring out a room’s
window and the idealized country setting – a yellow flowering field , cattle
lazing beside a mountain – creates a mood of curiosity, awe and wonder as
the unspoken question the speaker wants to ask, and by extension the reader:
what is the woman thinking and feeling?
Imagery (cont.)
The speaker seems to answer this question in the last two stanzas of the poem
through his use of an analogy when he introduces another major image – “a well
braced gate”. He explains:
Face to face with her was an education
Of the sort you got across a well-braced gate -One of those lean, clean, iron, roadside ones
Between two whitewashed pillars, where you could see
Deeper into the country than you expected
And discovered that the field behind the hedge
Grew more distinctly strange as you kept standing
Focused and drawn in by what barred the way.
Here he compares the woman’s experience looking out her window while confined
to a wheel-chair to that of another person’s experience standing behind an iron gate
and being forced to only look at how “the field behind the hedge / grew more
distinctly strange as you kept standing / focused and drawn in by what barred the
way.”
This analogy, especially the last line of the poem, reveals the poem’s meaning.
Meaning and
Structure
The speaker is suggesting the wheel-chair, far from being a handicap or a disadvantage in
the woman’s life, has allowed her to see things most others take for granted: the beauty of
the world right out our windows. She now sees that world with an enlarged sense of vision
or perception.
What, at first, appears to be an undesirable situation or an impediment has actually lead
the woman to greater discoveries about the world and herself. From her little room, she is
actually more connected to nature than the average person.
The speaker learns this lesson as he calls his observations of the woman “an education”.
If the reader believes the speaker is a poet, the poem’s meaning might be extended to an
understanding of poetry as often poems include formal restrictions such as rhyme schemes
or metrical patterns; or in the case of “Field of Vision”, a structure based on 4 line stanzas
all roughly iambic pentameter (a 10 syllable, 5 beat line).
Such formal restrictions can “focus and draw” a poet’s attention in new directions. This
is because they set up barriers or obstacles, “barring the way” of a poet’s thinking , until the
poet’s imagination is forced to find a creative solution, much like solving a riddle.
Conclusion
• In conclusion, education and perception are prominent
themes in the poem “Field of Vision” by Seamus Heaney.
• The speaker of the poem teaches readers not all education
happens in schools and in classrooms. Education involves
life-long learning and is as much informed by life experience
as it is by whatever universities people attend.
• Also, the way people look at the world influences how they
feel about it and themselves. If we are only concerned with
the thoughts in our own head and are not actively looking at
the world or nature, is it any wonder that we sometimes feel
disconnected from life?