Ministry of Fear- Seamus Heaney Analysis Essay

Using Ministry of fear and an new(prenominal) appropriately selected poetry explore the smack of place Heaney conveys with reference to the troubles in N.I, with particular reference to the effects of whatsoever political and social context and Heaneys get views.Ministry of Fear is from Heaneys North collection, indite in 1975 while Heaney was staying in Wicklow, Casualty was pen shortly after in Field work in 1979. by these two poems Heaney conveys a untroubled sense of place, namely northerly Ireland, through Ministry of fear Heaney describes four-spot events throughout his life in N.I that had a strong sour on him, Casualty is similar but more(prenominal) think on the Troubles in N.I and some of Heaneys feelings towards those events.Ministry of fear touches on four key moments in Heaneys life, the first of which is his boarding at St Columbs, wherefore a catholic boarding school in Derry. An experience he found to be very unfair and close treacherous. Sweeten my ext radite Heaney describing it himself as exile, understandably he thought he was pressured into going possibly when he didnt want to. Secondly he describes his first flirt with poetry and higher education at Queens University. This section is written in a very self deprecating tone and al well-nigh a hint of jealousy, He describes his Friend, Seamus Deanes skill with the pen vowels and ideas bandied bring out and then mocks his own attempts, hobnailed boots Fine lawns of elocution These statements atomic number 18 slightly schmaltzy and quite ironic, Heaney writing what was to be a highly acclaimed poem rough his own poetic inabilities.He goes on to describe his first versed encounters when he came to life in the kissing seat of an Austin 16 this whole phrase resonates innocence and although this particular experience is important in any young mans life I think it is a look at ploy to stress the innocence he felt he had before the fourth memory. Which is Heaneys experience wi th a crass RUC patrol, which seems to represent a bovine threat crowding roundlike black cattle. for each one of these memories helps convey a real sense of place, making it easy for us to identify with Northern Ireland in each instance, through Heaneys bright recollections.Casualty explores one main theme the affinities between himself as a poet and a fisherman killed accidentally for defying a curfew imposed by the wrath in Derry after Bloody Sunday. Heaney through this poem tells the story of Louis ONeill, a provincial man who drank at his father in laws bar. much(prenominal) like Ministry of fear he is looking back on the events, with a different perspective, almost analytically. It begins with a celebration of the man, Heaney affords him much respect and cl early on remembers him fondly in the opening stanza, he goes on to express the difficulties song made for him, and how he felt it isolated him from ordinary people especially in Northern Ireland. Similarly to Ministry o f fear, when Heaney let outs of his own poetic intrepidity he is self deprecating, ironic and bathetic again. The man, whom he would not talk to poetry about, became a muse or inspiration for one of his own poems. He goes on to recall Louis ONeills death and the political situation in Northern Ireland. PARAS 13 BOGSIDE NIL this phrase unaccompanied places us perfectly in the context of the troubles.Aside from the similar contexts of both(prenominal) poems Heaney conveys the sense of place in other ways, In Casualty Heaney takes influence from Writers of his own Country, The fisherman theme is carried throughout the poem, initially just as Louis ONeills vocation but particularly later in the poem as a way of life, the poem and this particular theme has an proportion in form and content with Yeatss the fisherman Both are written in trimesters, employ iambic rhythms and rhyme on skip lines. For each poet the fisherman is the most unlike, a kind of anti self, who embodies indepen dence, wisdom, rectitude a refusal to submit to the will of the crowd.By hinting at Yeats- an Irish poet- Heaney further emphasises the sense of place conveyed in this poem, this time through a more social context as opposed to a political one. He also references a famous Christmas carol while shepherds watched their flocks which because of the very unearthly nature of the Irish Catholics and indeed the protestants is as much an indication of Northern Ireland then as it is now.In Ministry of fear Heaney alludes to many other poems and poets, the most obvious of which was Patrick Kavanagh, An Irish Poet whos work Heaney discovered in the early 1960s and for which he developed an increasingrespect throughout the decade, Kavanagh seemed to Heaney to enlarge the split he himself was experiencing between the illiterate self that was tied to the minor hills and earthed in the stony grey soil, and the literate self that pined for the city of kings, where art, harmony and letters wer e the real things He also alludes to Yeats as in Casualty. Yeatss Ancestral Houses which speaks of a rich mans flowering lawns and of his planted hills much in the same way as Haney describes the fine lawns of elocution. By referencing all these other poets, especially the two Irish ones Heaney makes sure we are concentrating on N.I.