Transcript Follower - Miss Thompson Media

Follower
Seamus
Heaney
Follower
My father worked with a horse-plough,
His shoulders globed like a full sail
strung
Between the shafts and the furrow.
The horses strained at his clicking
tongue.
An expert. He would set the wing
And fit the bright steel-pointed sock.
The sod rolled over without breaking.
At the headrig, with a single pluck
Of reins, the sweating team turned
round
And back into the land. His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly.
I stumbled in his hob-nailed wake,
Fell sometimes on the polished sod;
Sometimes he rode me on his back
Dipping and rising to his plod.
I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow around the farm.
I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.
Close Reading Questions
Provide full answers backed up with quotations
• Describe the speaker and who is
he speaking about? What is the
tense and what does this show?
• What is the speaker describing?
• How does the speaker feel about
his father?
• What does the title tell us?
• Describe the form of poem used,
the structure of stanzas, lines,
rhyme scheme. Any repetition,
parallels or other patterns?
• How might the structure here
represent the action of
ploughing? How might it
represent the father?
• Explain the comparison suggested
by the simile used in stanza 1.
• What other language techniques
and examples show that the
speaker admires his father?
• In the final stanza, how has the
father now become like the
speaker? How is the tone of voice
in the final stanza different from
the rest of the poem?
• What does the choice of verbs
show? (“narrowed … angled …
mapping”)
• What choice of verbs are used to
describe the speaker? Now
compare these to the description
of the father.
• Identify the imagery used by the
poet and discuss their meanings.
• Why do you think Heaney has
written this poem?
Themes
• Group work
Compare and discuss your
responses to the ‘Close
Reading Questions’.
Eg. “I thought the simile
showed……, what did you
think?”
Add new ideas to your
own answers.
• Next
As a group, come to a
consensus on 3 key
themes explored by
Heaney in this poem.
Provide evidence from the
text for each theme and a
reasonable explanation.
Now, put them in what
you think is their order of
priority
Biography & Background
Heaney was born on 13th. April
1939, the eldest of nine children
at the family farm called
Mossbawn in the Townland of
Tamniarn near Castledawson,
Northern Ireland, about thirty
miles north-west of Belfast and
two miles north-east of
Magherafelt. As well as being a
farmer, his father Patrick was also
a cattle dealer and was a popular
figure at cattle markets and fairs
throughout the district.
In 1957 Heaney travelled to
Belfast to study English Language
and Literature at Queen's
University of Belfast. He began to
write and during his third year at
university his poems began to
appear in the Queen’s literary
magazines Q and Gorgon.
http://www.seamusheaney.org/seamus_
heaney_biography.html
Analysis
Heaney presents us with a very vivid picture of his father as he appeared to the poet as a young boy. We
learn a lot about both the relationship that existed between them and the way Heaney saw his family.
The father is, more than anything else, an energetic and skilled farmer. He is 'An expert' with the horseplough and Heaney as a little boy would simply get in his father's way. The poem is full of admiration for his
father's strength and skill with horses. At the end of the poem, however, we are moved to the present day
and there is a change in roles; it is now Heaney's father who has become the child who gets in the way. His
awareness of how the passing of time has brought about this change does not lessen the love and respect
he feels, however.
Heaney remembers when he was a small boy, and in the poem he looks up to his father in a physical sense,
because he is so much smaller than his father, but he also looks up to him in a metaphorical sense. This is
made clear by the poet's careful choice of words. An example of this is in the lines:
"His eye
Narrowed and angled at the ground,
Mapping the furrow exactly."
The choices of the verbs "Narrowed", "angled" and "Mapping" effectively suggest his father's skill and
precision. We are also told that young Heaney "stumbled in his hob-nailed wake," which brings to our mind
a picture of the ploughman's heavy boots, the carefully ploughed furrow and the child's clumsy enthusiasm.
This idea is repeated in the lines:
" I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always."
These words, especially "Yapping" make us think of the boy as being like a young and excited puppy enjoying playing at ploughing, but of no practical help. In fact, he was a hindrance to a busy farmer, but his
father tolerates him.
Analysis
His father's strength and power are also very effectively brought out in the simple, but effective simile:
"His shoulders globed like a full sail strung
Between the shafts and the furrow."
The comparison here suggests a man who spends much of his time out of doors, a man who is a part of nature. The word
"globed" also suggests great strength and gives the impression that the father was the whole world to the young boy. It is
important to note that his father is not simply strong; his tender love and care for his son are emphasised by the fact that he
"rode me on his back/ Dipping and rising to his plod". The sound and rhythm of these lines convey the pleasure young
Heaney had in the ride.
The poem is written in six stanzas of four lines each. The first four stanzas describe Heaney's admiration for his father and his
abilities. The next five and a half lines SHOW that the poet wanted to grow up to be like his father. However, he feels that he
could do no more than get in the way. Then there is a twist in the last two and a half lines:
"But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away."
All through the poem Heaney uses devices like this to suggest to the reader something about his father. Some lines have a
rhythm which suggest the ruggedness of the ploughman and the rhythm of the ploughing. Also, Heaney uses words that do
not rhyme exactly, like "sock" and "pluck" ('half-rhyme'). This adds to the 'craggy' description. Heaney is also very careful
about how he arranges the words on the page. The second stanza begins with a brief two word statement -"An expert",
which, in its emphatic brevity, forces us to take note, and leaves the impression that there is nothing more to add.
Even though the word 'love' is never used in the poem, it is obviously the word that best describes the basis of the
relationship existing between Heaney and his father. The poem is very much a personal experience, but it has a much wider
significance relating to any kind of hero-worship by a 'follower'. Now that he is himself an adult, Heaney acknowledges that
the father he hero-worshipped as a young boy has grown old and needs as much tolerance and patience as he himself once
showed his son.
Compare
Chart the similarities and differences between Follower & these poems
• Follower
• Praise Song for my
Mother
• Childhood
• For Heidi with Blue Hair
• My Parents
• Elegy for my Father’s
Father
• Country School
• A Dream
Briefly
•
•
Seamus Heaney was born in 1939 to
a farming family in County Derry,
Northern Ireland, and much of his
poetry is rooted in Ireland. He was
awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1995.
Heaney’s farming background is
evident in this poem, as the first five
stanzas celebrate the father’s
expertise in old-fashioned ploughing
with horses. The language constantly
points to his skill in controlling the
horses and ploughing perfect furrows
in the soil, which ‘rolled over without
breaking.’ It is as much an evocation
of tradition and direct contact
between man and the earth, as it is
of the father.
•
•
It is the reminiscing narrator who
defines his father’s ploughing skills;
as a youth he was eager, but
‘stumbled’. As the father gives the
child a ride on his back while
ploughing, the reader senses the
patience of the elder man with the
‘nuisance’, but also evident is the
child’s aspiration ‘to grow up and
plough’.
The final stanza reverses the
positions and can be interpreted in
alternative ways. It could be the
elderly, infirm father who now ‘keeps
stumbling’, or it could be the memory
of the now deceased father which
consistently shambles through the
narrator’s mind. If the poem is read
autobiographically, the ending has
extra poignancy, as Seamus Heaney
never grew up to ‘plough’.