Mid Term Break

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a close”. He makes use of the literary devices onomatopoeia and assonance when he says the word “knelling” in this line of the poem. Knelling alludes to the sound funeral bells make when they are rung, to me this suggests tragedy and death. Then in the next line he says how his neighbours came to the school to come get him, not his parents. “At two o’clock our neighbours drove me home”. He was in the office from the morning time until mid-afternoon by his lonesome. I feel like this long period of time of him not knowing what was happening could have built up a lot of tension and made him uneasy. Also, the fact that his neighbours came to pick him up instead of his actual parents is clear indication of something being wrong.
The theme is further demonstrated in the second stanza when Heaney finally arrives back at his home and meets his father in tears on their front porch. This came as a surprise to him because his father never took sad situations that hard. He says ...

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The awkwardness of the situation is developed further when young Heaney is “embarrassed” by the offering of sympathy from some “old men”. Heaney uses euphemism when the old men tell him that they were “sorry for his trouble”. Although he is placed in an adult situation where he must act mature, he still can’t hide from his internal childlike emotions. Since he does not bawl tears like his father, he appears as the strongest character out the group. I feel like young Heaney at this point is still in shock at everything that has happened in this short time period but he’s still trying his best to remain poised for his parents’ sake.
In the fifth stanza he ...

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