seamus heaney's the wifes tale

Seamus Heaney employs a great number of poetic devices in order to explore the theme of women in his poem “The Wife’s Tale”. The free-verse piece features in Heaney’s 1969 collection “A Door into the Dark”, is non-rhyming, and is divided into four stanzas of seven, twelve, seven and nine lines respectively. The varying length of verse adds a quirky, idiosyncratic feel and helps to create different levels of focus on the contents of each section. Dealing with Heaney’s perspective on the role of a woman in a rural setting, it is likely to have been based on his mother (the woman he would have been closest to and seen most of whilst growing up, giving him credible scope for writing on this topic) and her experiences in this context. The poem emanates feeling of routine, that this is not based on an isolated event but of many times over years of living on the family farm in Derry. The voice of the poem represents not only Heaney’s mother, but all quintessentially rural women. The roles of women during the time were just the same as they were before and during World War II – typically to stay at home, do the household chores and take care of the family - indeed not much had changed. Towards the mid-sixties, women started to move out and away from the home, taking up jobs and doing the same things that men were doing. Many took up careers to help support the family, either because they wanted to earn and provide independently or because they had to. This poem depicts a woman who fits the more traditional role of the “rural wife” at a time when women were starting to see other options. The rhythm of the poem enacts a descent through the stanzas and the metaphorical anecdote which they depict, as Heaney immortalises the rural tradition of a woman’s role and allows her to voice the tale. The title of the poem, typically of Heaney’s style, is relatively simple, allowing the reader to take it literally or to search for an underlying metaphor – part of the poetic beauty of