Narrative Based on Seamus Heaney's Poems, Mid-Term Break and Storm on the Island
Korina Pirillou
Mr. Stroughair
English Language A
11th of March, 2015
Written Task 1
Narrative based on Seamus Heaney’s “Storm on the Island” and “Mid-term Break” Poems
Rationale:
This written task relates to Part 4: Literature: Critical Study of the course. For this written task, I have chosen to write a complete short story with strong descriptive elements based on two of Seamus Heaney’s poems - ‘Mid-term Break’ and ‘Storm on the Island’. I have chosen these two poems since they show very significant parts of Heaney’s life and they both consist of strong emotions that link with what Heaney is trying to express. I will start with the present tense where Seamus Heaney and his family are in their home during a strong storm and then progress through the narrative by having a flashback, written in past tense, to the day Heaney found out about his younger brother’s death in order to separate the different time periods in the narrative and therefore, create a sense of memory. The whole narrative will be written in first person in the perspective of young Seamus Heaney since this will help the reader and the narrator of the story to have a stronger connection. I will not be using a large number of words from Seamus Heaney’s work since this will make the narrative seem false. I will therefore merge my work with Heaney’s in order to show how he is grieving. I have used words that Heaney wrote in his poems such as “knelling” and “stanched”. The majority of the narrative will focus on “Mid-term Break” in order to emphasise how Seamus Heaney felt about his brother’s death. In 1953, a car had hit and killed his 4-year old younger brother, Christopher, when Heaney was 14 years old and attending St. Columb’s college, a boarding school in Derry. This impacted Heaney’s family greatly, and this tragedy led to Heaney’s moving poem “Mid-term Break” that he wrote in the year 1963.
Word count: 300
Response:
An Unforgotten Soul
The wind howls across
Mr. Stroughair
English Language A
11th of March, 2015
Written Task 1
Narrative based on Seamus Heaney’s “Storm on the Island” and “Mid-term Break” Poems
Rationale:
This written task relates to Part 4: Literature: Critical Study of the course. For this written task, I have chosen to write a complete short story with strong descriptive elements based on two of Seamus Heaney’s poems - ‘Mid-term Break’ and ‘Storm on the Island’. I have chosen these two poems since they show very significant parts of Heaney’s life and they both consist of strong emotions that link with what Heaney is trying to express. I will start with the present tense where Seamus Heaney and his family are in their home during a strong storm and then progress through the narrative by having a flashback, written in past tense, to the day Heaney found out about his younger brother’s death in order to separate the different time periods in the narrative and therefore, create a sense of memory. The whole narrative will be written in first person in the perspective of young Seamus Heaney since this will help the reader and the narrator of the story to have a stronger connection. I will not be using a large number of words from Seamus Heaney’s work since this will make the narrative seem false. I will therefore merge my work with Heaney’s in order to show how he is grieving. I have used words that Heaney wrote in his poems such as “knelling” and “stanched”. The majority of the narrative will focus on “Mid-term Break” in order to emphasise how Seamus Heaney felt about his brother’s death. In 1953, a car had hit and killed his 4-year old younger brother, Christopher, when Heaney was 14 years old and attending St. Columb’s college, a boarding school in Derry. This impacted Heaney’s family greatly, and this tragedy led to Heaney’s moving poem “Mid-term Break” that he wrote in the year 1963.
Word count: 300
Response:
An Unforgotten Soul
The wind howls across