Seamus Heaney's "Death of a Naturalist": Techniques Used for Character Development Essay Example
Commentary: Death of a Naturalist' by Seamus Heaney
In the poem Death of a Naturalist', written by Seamus Heaney in 1987, the author develops a symbolic plot of an adult speaker looking back on his childhood, demonstrating how as a young boy, his perception of the same environment suddenly matured and altered, essentially providing a new way of looking at the bridge between childhood and adulthood, and displaying how over time, people's interpretation of their surroundings and of society around them will inevitably change and develop. To elucidate this development, Heaney establishes a definite structure, exposing the two different interpretations, and uses repetitively tangible and highly sensory diction to expose the crucial character development in a constant setting, revealing the poem's themes. The structure of the poem is fundamental for its purpose to consider the motivations behind two different approaches to the same situation. The poem has two definitive sections, and is divided into two stanzas. The first stanza clearly depicts a picture of innocence, as the child looks upon everything in his surroundings with a seemingly boundless fascination. In such a grim, unpleasant, swampy environment, he says, "Best of all was the warm thick slobber of frogspawn". Conversely, in the second stanza the child approaches the same flax-dam' with a very skeptical attitude, feeling suspicious toward the unknown in his surroundings, and even feeling threatened by the simple "slap and plop" of the frogs. The fact that the two stanzas convey a very different perception of the same environment is also demonstrated by the fact that in the first stanza, the male frog is referred to as "daddy frog", while in the second stanza, the boy perceives the male frogs as "great slime kings". This shift in interpretation can be effectively analyzed, as the poem is written in first person, and thus the true, intimate sentiments of the child shine through, displaying the
In the poem Death of a Naturalist', written by Seamus Heaney in 1987, the author develops a symbolic plot of an adult speaker looking back on his childhood, demonstrating how as a young boy, his perception of the same environment suddenly matured and altered, essentially providing a new way of looking at the bridge between childhood and adulthood, and displaying how over time, people's interpretation of their surroundings and of society around them will inevitably change and develop. To elucidate this development, Heaney establishes a definite structure, exposing the two different interpretations, and uses repetitively tangible and highly sensory diction to expose the crucial character development in a constant setting, revealing the poem's themes. The structure of the poem is fundamental for its purpose to consider the motivations behind two different approaches to the same situation. The poem has two definitive sections, and is divided into two stanzas. The first stanza clearly depicts a picture of innocence, as the child looks upon everything in his surroundings with a seemingly boundless fascination. In such a grim, unpleasant, swampy environment, he says, "Best of all was the warm thick slobber of frogspawn". Conversely, in the second stanza the child approaches the same flax-dam' with a very skeptical attitude, feeling suspicious toward the unknown in his surroundings, and even feeling threatened by the simple "slap and plop" of the frogs. The fact that the two stanzas convey a very different perception of the same environment is also demonstrated by the fact that in the first stanza, the male frog is referred to as "daddy frog", while in the second stanza, the boy perceives the male frogs as "great slime kings". This shift in interpretation can be effectively analyzed, as the poem is written in first person, and thus the true, intimate sentiments of the child shine through, displaying the