Digging Essays - Seamus Heaney, Death Of A Naturalist,

Digging The poem ?Digging,? is a free verse poem written by Seamus Heaney. It is the first poem in a collection of poems written by Heaney called the ?Death of a Naturalist,? first published in 1966. Heaney was born in 1939 and raised in Northern Ireland in a rural farming community. He was one of nine children and the son of a farmer. In his poem ?Digging,? Heaney is perhaps reflecting on his childhood as the son of a farmer and his admiration for his father and grandfather?s hard work. Through the use metaphor, symbolism and alliteration, Heaney illustrates and connects his childhood memories and roots of his family and culture with the importance and value of hard work. These memories and values are translated through his recollection of his father and grandfather?s hard work in potato farming into his own life?s work of writing. A metaphor is a comparison where a word or words are used to create an impression between two things which are similar. In the beginning of ?Digging,? the poet sees his father and grandfather digging. He has a sense of great pride in his father and grandfather?s hard work as they work the ground to plant potatoes. As he watches them work, he eventually realizes ?he has no spade to follow men like them? (line 29). He comes to realize that his work will not be in agriculture or farming like his father and grandfather, but that his ?digging? or work, metaphorically, will be with using a pen as a spade. Hence, writing is his work with his pen as his tool like farming was his father?s work and his tool was a spade. Furthermore, there is also an extended metaphorical relationship between his father?s digging with a spade and his work as a writer with a pen. This extended metaphor of his father is seen by the poet with his father digging in his garden and then twenty years earlier, digg ing potatoes, which is representative of the poet going back in time and recalling, as in ?digging? in one?s memories of the past. As the poet recalls his past, Heaney uses many symbols to convey a number of meanings. In the opening of ?Digging,? he compares his pen to a gun (line 2). The symbolic meaning of this is perhaps the idea that the pen is a mighty weapon or powerful tool capable of great work like his father?s and grandfather?s work with a spade (line 15, 17). His father?s work with a spade was powered by physical strength and the poet?s work, although not physically demanding, is powered by great mental work and equally admirable. Additionally, the earth, referring to the fertile soil, is used in several ways symbolically with the words ground, turf and roots to represent what the poet is tied to or rooted and grounded in, in relation to his father and grandfather?s way of life (line 4, 24, 27). Heaney conveys a sense of ?grounding? or close bonding, stability and respect with and for his father and grandfather as potato farmers. He and his family have their ?roots? in farming and the earth or fert ile soil, the very turf or ground which they till through their hard work, provide them with food which is essential to their survival. This food which is the potato, is symbolic of their hard work and is the reward for their labor (line 15). All these are symbols of the poet?s connection to his family, his origins or beginnings and the ?roots? of his family in farming. Finally, alliteration is the use of words with the same syllable and sound to accentuate or highlight a specific point. Heaney uses alliteration very effectively a number of times throughout the poem ?Digging.? ?Spade sinks into gravelly ground;? ?tall tops;? ?buried the bright;? ?squelch and slap of soggy;? and ?curt cuts? are all examples of Heaney?s use of alliteration to emphasize the hard work and energy required by his father and grandfather when tilling the ground which produced the ?fruits of their labor? (line 4, 12, 26, 27). The reader has a strong sense of what it is like to be in a field digging in the soil,