Transcript Document

By Seamus Heaney
Digging
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.
Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.
My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
Through living roots awaken in my head.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep But I've no spade to follow men like them.
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.
Why does Heaney use this simile?
How can a pen be used as a weapon?
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; as snug as a gun.
Heaney uses this simile to express his belief that he
can use his pen instead of a gun, as a weapon. It
shows a new belief that you do not always have to
use violence to achieve your goal. Even if you do
resort to physical fighting there is no guarantee that
you will win.
Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
Highlight any onomatopoeic words
What effect do these words have upon the
reader?
What kind of a picture is Heaney creating?
Under my window a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down
Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.
onomatopoeic words: these words depict the
image of the act of digging.
‘Gravelly’ contains a number of meanings
How do we know Heaney is remembering?
“twenty years”
“rhythm”
“Gravelly” is symbolic in that it refers to the One Crop Law that was imposed on
Ireland by England. This law was later blamed for the famine that struck Ireland
when the potato crop failed. Heaney shows the ground as ‘grave like’ because it was
the physical cause for the famine. The soil retained too much water resulting in
the potato crop rotting. This left the Irish with no crop to eat. The message in
the word ‘gravelly’ is therefore ambiguous and educates the reader of the
hardships Irish farmers faced from the English oppressors. This is an example of
the pen as a weapon.
“Twenty years” - watching his father digging in the flowerbeds brings back
memories of him working in the potato fields. This memory is what the author is
choosing to document, British tyranny towards the Irish. And by documenting
this unfair treatment, the author is using his poetry as a weapon.
“Rhythm” is intended to parallel the plight of the Irish with an image of a slave
as part of a chain gang doing hard labour. During slavery, the slaves would create
songs and sing them to the rhythm of their work. This would break the monotony
and also alleviate some of their stress. Here Heaney is saying that the Irish
were captives and their unfavourable task was to cultivate the potato fields.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
What makes us think Heaney
admires the art of digging and
farming?
By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.
How does Heaney convey a
sense of time and injustice?
My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Is there a sense of futility
throughout this section?
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.
By God, the old man could handle a spade,
Just like his old man.
My grandfather could cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, digging down and down
For the good turf. Digging.
This is a particularly descriptive and
emotional section of the poem where
Heaney displays his love and
admiration for digging and farming.
He uses alliteration to create
delicate and powerful images for the
reader.
By choosing words with few syllables
he creates an artistic view of the
simple act of digging potatoes
By pointing out that his father could
dig as well as his grandfather gives
the reader a sense of time, informing
the audience of just how long this
unjust practice had been taking place
for. Digging is paralleled with the
rebellion in that their acts are
getting them nowhere but into a
deeper and deeper situation.
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
What does Heaney mean by “living
roots awaken in my head”?
Is he disappointed at not being able
to work the land?
What does he mean by he’ll “dig with
it”?
V’s
The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.
Heaney is not letting his father’s
actions die a futile death. Instead
he has made his father’s memories
seeds in his mind, very much alive,
at root in his existence.
Heaney is disappointed that he can’t ever be like
father or grandfather, however he doesn’t provide
reasons why in the poem. However at the end of
poem there is a real sense that he knows what he
achieve as an individual.
V’s
his
the
the
can
Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.
This final line is open to much interpretation. It is a
confident statement where the idea of using a pen to
dig is very similar to that of a newspaper reporter
uses a pen. It is the job of a journalist to uncover
hidden information so that it can be known. This is
exactly what Heaney wants to do in his work and has
accomplished in this poem. He has unearthed the
cruel policy of the One Crop Law and in doing so, has
provided a contemporary audience with an
understanding of the conflict between the British
and the Irish.
Digging and writing do have strong parallels, in that a writer digs in
their mind and that digging and writing are both constructive
processes. The former digs in order to get nourishment for the
body, as a writer writes for nourishment of the mind. For Heaney
the pen is a weapon to speak out for what he believes in.
The End