In the poem “Follower” by Seamus Heaney he uses imagery of following to show the admiration of his father and the change of roles that occurs between the speaker and father. Heaney creates a certain image in the beginning of the poem when he describes his father work in the field. The speaker is speaking as a young boy in the poem and he remembers himself following his father as he goes about his work and, like most young men, he looks up to his dad as a hero and he admires him.
The poem is structured in six stanzas, each stanza containing four lines and the rhyme scheme of the poem is ABAB. Heaney makes several nautical references in the poem. These include “The father's shoulders are like the billowing sail of a ship. The “sod” rolls over “without breaking” (like a wave) (Heaney 2-3). “Mapping the furrow” is like navigating a ship (Heaney 12). The nautical imagery in the poem explains that his dad was a hard worker. He compares his dad with the nautical imagery in comparison with a sailor because they do physical ‘expert’ work. Also the nautical imagery could relate to movement because the dad ends up following the son at the end of the poem.
In the last stanza the roles of father and son seem to switch because the son is now older. “I was a nuisance, tripping, falling, yapping always. But today it is my father who keeps stumbling behind me, and will not go away.” The father has taken the follower child-like role that the speaker once had. It’s ironic because the father was once viewed as a powerful heroic figure to the son, but now the father is looking up to someone who use to look up to him.
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2 comments:
I agree that the speaker is rememberring his past, and tell a story of how he used to be a follower. But i think that the speaker could be saying that he was getting in the way of his fathers work, because the speaker refers to himself as a nuissance. Adn by the end of the poem the speaker is now an adult or older and he kind of feels that his father has becum a nuissance as well because the last lines says that his father jus won't go away. I think we interpreted the poem in two different tones. you seem to have interpretted the tone to be lauditory, which is quite interesting...
I thought I was the only person who really noticed the nautical imagery in the peom, but you proced otherwise. I agree that the nautical imagery compared to the father's work demonstrates that the father was very intelligent and hard working because sailors have hard jobs and do hard physical work. I think it was very abstract imagery that Heaney used, which makes it seem as if he admired him father is a very special way because nautical imagery isn't something commonly used or mentioned in writing, so his admiration for his dad was very special and different.
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