Literature Notes 27/02/21 - 03/02/21

Mid-Term Break
BY SEAMUS HEANEY

I sat all morning in the college sick bay

Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying—

He had always taken funerals in his stride—
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram

When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'.

Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.

At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops

And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,

He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four-foot box, a foot for every year.

07/01/21
1. The poet was brought up in a family farm in the village of Mossbourne
2. He was sent to boarding school and therefore most of his poems are about
living in a hostel, far away from home and about his infant brother who
passed away in an accident.
3. melancholic tone, grievous atmosphere
4. it’s an unexpected holiday (is what the title is representing) the mid-term
break was supposed to be a welcome break; but it is not a joyful one, it is
forlorn - heightens the feeling of loss and pain; unexpected shock and
sadness
5. The poem is in the voice of the poet but the way he explores the moment is
so vivid that it almost feels as if it’s happening in the present; it seems as
though it happened right now rather than hindsight because the pain was so
engrained in him that even when he got older it would feel like it happened
in the moment.
 6. Themes: how someone deals with death, grief and trauma; how the
after-effects of death are experienced differently be different people. For the
poet, this was the first time he dealt with mortality;
7. The poet begins the first stanza with the phrase (time-setting) “all morning”,
it creates the atmosphere of an unusual effect; the time-setting is in contrast
with the place-setting; he should be in a class in the morning, but rather, he is
in the sickbay
8. the first thought that is created is that the poet is ill himself; isolated, lonely,
unusually quiet, grim picture.
9. “I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a
close.” is grammatically incorrect, the fact that it’s not an end stop line shows
how long he waited to find out why he’s there and how long he had to be
lonely/heightened the sense of tension(foreboding), unaware of what’s next
10. homonym - “morning” and “mourning”
11. disassociation from the normal sea of the day; mood is sombre and gloomy
12. “bells knelling” is the sound of the funeral bell; he identifies the sound of the
class bells as the funeral bells, like a sense of dread; there’s a sense of
assonance in “bells knelling” heightens/extends the sense of time; the word
“close” marks the end of something, like the end of a life (ominous) the “c”
song shows the discomfort of the feeling of waiting.
13. There’s no usual excitement when he has to go back home in the middle of
school, so he expected bad news.
14. The 2nd scene develops from when the boy reaches his home; he sees his
father crying with is a strange thing to him, because he’s not the kind of man
who cried; he felt distant from his father, and that further heightens his shock
(he was quite stoic about other deaths)
15. The lack of control from his father’s end heightened the sense of loss and
grief; sense of confusion and bafflement and the sight of his father crying
happened simultaneous- so he was in denial
16. The fact that the baby cooed and laughed was ironic; doesn’t know how to
react, he is in stupor

28/01/21
17. the “porch” is symbolic of his home, so when he comes back home to hear
this bad news, it heightens the sense of loss
18. the baby’s happy noises(innocence) had a sharp contrast against the reality of
death
19. he is completely unaccustomed to the chaos of a funeral, so this makes him
feel awkward/unusual and discomforting that the old, respected men would
say these things to him
20. we get to see through the journey through the house, the different phases of
grief and how people treat others in grief
21. he seems expected to become a dutiful, responsible young man who must
take on not only his pain, but also the pain of his father; he seems more
mature/aged after the grief; everyone’s trying to get support from him
(holding/shaking hands)
 22. the tactile image of “shaking hands” shows the sincerity, warmth and
respect- he is in trouble but he also needs to stand up for the family
23. the word “trouble” doesn’t make sense to him- it’s is a euphemism (for a
young boy, it’s incomprehensible) he cannot fathom why they regret his
trouble; the older men don’t even know how to break the news to the young
boy (trying to be gentle and compassionate)
24. the phrase “angry tearless sighs” is a transferred epithet

03/02/21
25. The calmness in the atmosphere of the next day portrays the acceptance;
corpse turns into “him” and shows that the chaos is over and he realises and
understands what had happened
26. “candles” is another symbol of a funeral; the word he uses here is “soothe”
as if the candles is taking away the pain and grief and humanising the corpse
27. the time he has been away evokes a sense of pity in the brother
28. a poppy is a flower which is blue
29. The fact that he’s lying in his cot shows how he’s fragile and how his life was
ahead of him; the poet understands the cruelty of fate
Examine how the poet portrays the shock experienced by the grieving poet in the poem
Mid-Term Break.

The poem “Mid-Term Break” was written and published by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney in
1966, and it describes the aftermath of the tragic death of his little brother. The poet expresses
his extreme dismay and shock by recounting the dreadful wait to go back home to see his dead
baby brother, by portraying the vivid image of his father who had broken down because of this
tragedy and by highlighting the immense and unexpected responsibility that had rested itself
on his shoulders all of a sudden. All of these events acknowledge his heavy grief as he was
struck by the devastating news, and they utilise effective writing tools such as allegory, structure,
and imagery.

In the second line of the first stanza, the poet mentions the phrase “bells knelling”, showing that
the class bells were identified by him as the sound of funeral bells in a church (which is
allegorical) to heighten the sense of shock he was about to feel when he got home. This instils
the sharp discomfort of the feeling of waiting for something bad to happen. The use of dashes,
enjambment and other punctuation dreadfully slow and pause proceedings, implying the fact
that the poet was in a state of stupor and could not think straight. Therefore, his emotions were
mixed up and his thoughts filled his head in bits and pieces that he could not process, similar to
the structure of the first two stanzas. The poet remembers most of this event rather than having
it fluidly composed, suggesting that this news came to him as a heart-breaking surprise that he
could not accept. This method of describing a scenario gives the readers an insight to the
shocked mind of a grieving individual.

The second scene develops from when the boy reaches his home; he saw his father crying. The
line “He had always taken funerals in his stride—” shows that this was extremely strange thing
to the poet because his father not the kind of man who broke down, putting the boy in serious
shock. The sense of confusion and bafflement and the sight of his father crying happened
simultaneously. All of a sudden, it is clear that he felt distant from his father (which can be seen
through the involuntary dashes and the manner in which the boy moved on into the house
instantly), as if he did not know him anymore. His father was normally stoic when it came to most
other deaths, and the lack of control from his father’s end heightened the sense of loss and
grief. The fact that family members react differently to deaths in other families as compared to
deaths within their own family (especially a man’s own son) is utilised to convey the silent
understanding that passed between the father and the poet. The boy correctly interpreted that
it was his own family member who had passed away, and he refused to accept it, putting him in
a shock at the realisation.

At the sight of his father, it seems expected of him by his tragic fate to become a dutiful,
responsible young man who must take on not only his pain, but also the pain of his father all of
a sudden. He seems more mature after the grief because several people, adults in particular, are
trying to get support from him by holding and shaking his hand (in the line “…old men standing
up to shake my hand” and stanza 4). This is a sign of respect and sympathy that grown men
normally have for each other in such a situation, and the fact that this boy was receiving it shows
that he is now a man, and he must be someone his mother can depend on in the line “…as my
mother held my hand”. Out of the blue, he is expected to hold up the grief of his family and his
father’s responsibilities (because he had broken down and he seemed incapable of doing this).
This unanticipated reliance also heightens the state of shock and stress the boy is under, and it
is truly mentally challenging. The eldest son is thus going through a sudden rite of passage,
because this profoundly sad death in the family is forcing him to grow up and he's finding it
understandably hard.
In conclusion, Seamus utilises efficient story-telling techniques such increasing the atmospheric
tension during the wait to find out about the tragedy, portraying a clear image of what truly
disturbs the boy’s character and realistic themes such as the undertaking of responsibility to
showcase how staggering this event must have been for the poet. By doing this, the poet
successfully recognises that shock is a natural part of grief, and may definitely occur before the
actuality of the loss sinks in.