Seamus Heaney's Requiem for the Croppies and Punishment

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to be killed on the charge of adultery 2000 years ago [[3]]. Heaney takes this bog body as an ancient example of brutality and links it with the modern form of brutality which is evident of Irish rebel's killing of Irish girls who consort with British soldiers. The ideologies of humanitarianism and nationalism form the core of the poem and these are represented through the use of explicit imagery, change in persona and artful enjambment.

The ideologies portrayed by the poem "Requiem for the Croppies" are imperialism and patriotism. Imperialism is the creation or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship, usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and subordination. Imperialism is perceptibly resented by the Irish because the peasants from the rural communities in Ireland were oppressed economically and politically by the English. Heaney's poem embodies both the fortitude of the 1916 Easter Uprising and its ...

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it is not until all the rebels are dead that the seeds of rebellion come to fruition "And in August the barley grew up out of the grave." The last line links with the first line and creates the image that the defiance of Vinegar Hill is the seed for future insurrection. The barley will feed the next army of men and the violence won't stop until there is justice. The descriptive language of the poem paints vivid imageries and evokes the readers to appreciate and understand the Irish's spirit of patriotism and their continuous revolution to free their country from the injustice of imperialism.

"Requiem for the Croppies" is spoken in the collective persona of the 1798 united Irish rebels ...

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