Lindsey Cherry

Essay #1
Mr. Anderson
Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place

“The clear expression of mixed feelings,” was a quote from W.H. Auden, which is

a precise understanding of the context in “Limbo,” written by Seamus Heaney, a Nobel

Prize winning Irish poet, and professor of poetry at both Harvard and Oxford (Seamus).

Auden himself was a British born American poet educated at Oxford, best known for the

versatility in his work (W.H. Auden). In “Limbo,” Heaney illustrates a child who has lost

salvation and is now at a midpoint, away from heaven, as well as the conflicts of the

mother, as she decides to drown the life of her newborn. The poet, Heaney, also has

mixed feelings for the mother; therefore, he did not condemn the mother for her crime

against life, but, on the same token, translates that the loss of the child’s life is a great

tragedy. Seamus Heaney uses a fishing theme throughout the story in order to tie it

together for the reader, but also to reference the catch in life. In “Limbo,” both the word

limbo, and fishing are main themes in the poem.

Limbo is defined as many things, the first being “a region on the border of hell or

heaven, serving as the abode after death of unbaptized infants,” which perfectly describes

the child found in “Limbo” (limbo). This infant is caught in the conflict of the time, ad

being both illegitimate and not baptized, not even the hand of God can save his soul.

Heaney acknowledges that by referring to the child as “an illegitimate spawning,” which

has to do with the child’s birth and by also alluding to the fact that even Christ cannot

save his soul, hence in limbo forever, by saying that “even Christ’s palms, unhealed,

smart and cannot fish there.” “Christ’s palms, unhealed” makes reference to the

crucifixion of Christ on the cross for the sins of the world; whereas, “cannot fish there”

means that due to circumstances, even that sacrifice will not save that child’s soul.
 Lindsey Cherry
Essay #1
Mr. Anderson
Another definition to the word limbo is the “place or state of oblivion to which persons or

things are regarded as being relegated when cast aside, forgotten, past, or out of date”

(limbo). This can be applied to the mother as she struggles with herself emotionally to

cope with her decision to drown her child. She stood in the waters “ducking him

tenderly,” motherly, and lovingly as she takes his life; however, he was “tearing her

open.” She was torn with her choice, and was in limbo between valuing his life, and for

her own reasons not being able to keep him and deciding to end his life. In that space

between her and her child, she was disregarding all but her judgment and her child,

everything has been cast aside, even time as she wades “till the frozen knobs of her wrists

were dead as the gravel.” The author also recognizes her struggle emotionally. Heaney

wrote about her struggle in an emotional, sympathetic way. He begins describing the

scene with gentle words such as “small one,” “shallows,” “ducking,” etcetera, but as the

poem reaches the end, he uses strong dark words like “cross,” “hauled in,” and “cold

glitter of souls,” which all depict the general awareness that what she has done was an

evil deed. The inner turmoil that the author portrays in his poem, “Limbo,” helps the

reader to understand the perception of the child’s death mainly through the actions of the

mother by taking us through her trials.

Heaney also made fishing a main theme in his poem to draw in the reader by

connecting different scenes by a central motif. He referenced the baby to be “an

illegitimate spawning,” which illegitimate is the literal allusion to the birth status of the

human child, but he ties in “spawning,” which is the verbal allusion to how fish birth

their fry. He also illustrates how the baby was killed, as in the place and the literal killing

of the baby, by saying the baby was “a small one thrown back.” This makes reference to a
 Lindsey Cherry
Essay #1
Mr. Anderson
small fish, when fishing, is thrown back the water. Heaney also calls the baby “a minnow

with hooks” in connection with the mother since she has such ties to him that it breaks

her heart to have to kill him. Keeping with the fishing theme, Heaney compares the baby

to a minnow, and says that in drowning him, or the baby being “thrown back,” she has

been torn by the hooks that have become attached to her because of her child as if by

killing her child she is killing a part of herself. One of the most important illustration of

the fishing theme comes when Heaney describes the sacrifice of Christ not being enough

to save the soul of the infant by saying that “even Christ’s palms, unhealed, smart and

cannot fish there.” There was no literal meaning when he stated “cannot fish there,” he

meant it as an allusion to Christ’s inability, based on Catholic belief, to have the child join

him in heaven.

In conclusion, both the fishing and limbo motifs develop the poem “Limbo,”

written by Seamus Heaney. He develops both the child and the mother as being in an

intermediate state, as well as his form by the imagery words he uses. The child, being

illegitimate, is unable to be saved by Christ, so therefore will stay in Limbo outside

heaven. The mother herself has emotional conflicts between loving the child and wanting

to nurture it, and having to make the hard choice to drown him herself. And finally, the

author uses soft words in the beginning, then harsh, ugly words at the end to show both

conflicts between action and emotion. He ties all these scenes together by the central

motif of fishing so that the reader will relate them in a smoother manner which was

clearer to relate to with the confused, scrambled feelings of an unfortunate reality.

 Lindsey Cherry
Essay #1
Mr. Anderson
Works Cited

Frängsmyr, Tore. "Seamus Heaney - Biography". Nobelprize.org. 1995. 16 Sep 2011

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1995/heaney-bio.html

"limbo." Dictionary.com. 20 Sept 2011. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/limbo.

"W. H. Auden." Biography.com. 2011. 16 Sep 2011.

http://www.biography.com/people/w-h-auden-9192132.