Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney (Notes)

Mid-Term Break –Seamus Heaney

Tone: Sombre

Imagery: Death, Grief

Themes: Death, Frailty of Life, Growing up

Poetic Techniques: Onomatopoeia, Alliteration, Assonance, Simile, Metaphor

Summary:
A boy sits in the school’s medical area waiting to be given a lift home – the ringing of the school bell further enhance the fact that he is waiting for something. When he finally arrives home he sees his father on the porch, crying. The house is packed with neighbours and strangers who offer their condolences. He notices his baby sister in a cot laughing and cooing while his mother takes his hand – she is so overcome with anger and grief that she is unable to cry. Later, the body of his younger brother arrives in an ambulance. The next morning, when the house is quiet, the boy goes up to the bedroom to see his brother for the last time.

Theme:
‘Mid-Term Break’ is a first-person account of the experience of facing death for the first time. This death is especially tragic as the dead boy was only four years old, and also his younger brother. As he confronts death for the first time he sees how it affects those he loves. In the porch he meets his father “crying”, and later his mother holds his hand. She is too upset to cry, instead she “coughed out angry, tearless sighs”. There is also a sense in the poem that the boy has been forced to grow up by what has happened. When he comes to the house we read:

…I was embarrassed/ By old men standing up to shake my hand…

In the next stanza he tells us,

Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, Away at school.

As the eldest in the family, he is treated as an adult by neighbours and seen as a comfort to the family. Since he does not shed tears like his father, or appear severely grief-stricken like his mother, he emerges as the strongest character in his family.

Imagery:
A mid-term break is usually associated with time off school, holidays and fun. The poem’s title suggests a holiday but this “break” does not happen for