Seamus Heaney, in his body of work North uses his art to explore both the Irish

Troubles and the human experience. Heaney makes a connection between the mythical
and the logical and the past and the present to describe his thoughts and emotions
concerning the Irish Troubles and the human experience. It is through the use of this
myriad of imagery and the use of structural techniques that Heaney depicts his feelings
toward the Irish Trouble and the various aspects and problems of the human
experience. The poems Funeral Rites and Punishment use mythological figures and
metaphors to represent the problems of the past in order to explore the present issues
and contemporary conflicts. In them, the reader gains an insight to the Irish Troubles
and the various aspects and problems of the human experience via the connection
between the past and present.
The poem Funeral Rites is separated into three sections, which represents the
movement from past to present. It makes the connection between memory and
mythology and the present day, and this connection serves to relate the problems of the
past to the Irish Troubles and the problems of the human experience.
In the first section of the poem, the reader discovers that the victim is a Catholic, as this
is represented by the rosary beads and crucifixes. However, despite the fact that
Heaney is an Irish Catholic, the faith is not glorified by this poem, as Catholic symbols
are accompanied by images of imprisonment and service, such as shackled and the
wrists / obediently sloped. Accompanying the images of imprisonment and service are
icy images such as the black glacier and their igloo brows all of which represent the
restrictive practices of religion. Such practices have been a cause of the Irish Troubles in
the past and present. In this section the past is represented by the funerals being
pushed away, a religious practice of the ancient times.
When the persona states that he Shouldered a kind of manhood it symbolizes a loss of
innocence, and the mechanical nature of religious duties and those of war, the persona
now begins a new phase in his life, by which he leaves his past behind, and lives in the
present reality of civil war in Ireland.
The run on lines which occur in many stanzas create a conversational tone, however in
the lines dough white hands / Shackled in rosary beads and the1 wrists / obediently
sloped Heaney creates contrasting imagery between the present and the dead. The tone
of the first section of the poem is somber and meditative, as the reader reflects the past,
represented by the allusions to a cold, disconnected and quite funeral parlor, where
They had been laid out / in tainted rooms. The first section of the poem uses the
mythos of Catholic beliefs to symbolize the restrictiveness of religious practices,
obviously seen as a problem of the human experience by the poet.
In section two of the poem the imagery centers on the past, referring to the ancient
Norse and Irish mythology, and the arrival of St Patrick to the shores of Ire. The tone is
very reflective, as the reader follows the procession to the victims burial. To enter the
megalithic doorway is to go underground, working back into a prehistory.
Section two portrays an extremely long and wholly male procession that has its head at
the tombs of North West of Dublin, and its tail at the Gap of the North. In the second
section, males are represented by a serpent. On a psychological level this is a phallic
symbol, and this phallocentric discourse imposes many ways of the past onto society. It
represents the Catholic Church and Christianity in general, and confirms the importance
of service in religion. Furthermore it imposes patriarchal practices on females, causing
those women who stepped out of line to be publicly humiliated, which is also a way of
the past. The serpent is also a symbol of destruction, like the Norse serpent
Jormungand, who destroyed the realm of humans. This link to the past serves to
illustrate the poets opinion of the military role in the Irish Troubles by using the
mythological Jormungand to symbolize the destructive nature of humans.
The run on lines now give a sense that the serpent is moving toward the present from
the past. The serpent is also a symbol for the lines of memory and communication. The
muffled drumming confirms that the victim was a soldier as these drums were used at
military funerals. The fact that the nation tunes to the drumming means that they are
making an effort and going out of their way to incorporate the violence into their lives.
This is a part of the Irish troubles, as many people began to accept the violence
occurring around them, and so decided to tune to it, meaning that no one would speak
out against the social and political injustices happening all around them.
The third section provides closure on both the death of his relative and the Irish
violence. The cud of memory has being allayed, meaning that the feelings of hatred
and vengeance have being soothed, and the victim dies honorably, yet unavenged like
Gunnar and Jesus. The reference to Jesus occurs in the first two lines of the third
section When they have put the stone / back in its mouth.
The final lines:
which opened then, as he turned
with a joyful face
to look at the moon
are a joint reference to Jesus and Gunnar, as they both rose from there tombs. This
reference symbolizes hope for the future and the present, as represented in the past. The
poet causes the reader to reflect upon the hope that the future holds.
Funeral Rites is a journey from the home to eternity, as symbolized by Gunnar. The
juxtaposition of the logical present and the mythological past serves to represent the
way that the Irish Troubles and the problems of the human experience can be reconciled
by looking to the past, at figure like Gunnar and Jesus.
In Punishment the Winderby Girl, a bog body found in Denmark, is juxtaposed with
women who were involved in the Irish Troubles in contemporary times. The girl is
ancient, from the Iron Age, and represents the past. The Irish women symbolize the
present. The girl is a metaphor forIreland on many levels. Firstly, she represents the
girls who were punished for socialized with British soldiers during the 1960s. These
girls were cauled in tar and publicly humiliated. Secondly, she represents the political
and social punishment of Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland. These people had their
right to vote stripped from them, and lower preference for state housing and welfare.
And finally the punishment of the Girl herself, the little Adulteress.
The poem opens by sexually describing the girl, from the frail rigging / of her ribs to
the amber beads of her nipples. The persona, a silent onlooker, describes the Girl
almost pornographically, scrutinizing her into parts. This racy and vivid imagery causes
the reader to examine the place of women in society, and to prove that from past to
present, sexual discrimination is still a problem of the human experience. The frail
rigging creates an image of a ship, in an overwhelming cultural storm. This particular
ship was drowned in that storm, and a supposedly innocent life was taken.
The girl is also a symbol of Ireland. Although both the Girl and Irelandwere sacrificed at
the hands of oppressors (the British) they have managed to preserve their culture. The
Winderby Girl contains a myriad of information about the Iron Age, and this was
preserved, despite the fact that she was killed. Irish culture has also been preserved
throughout the ages, and has spread and flourished throughout the world. The
metaphor positions the reader to examine the results of the past atrocities committed
against Irelandand the Girl and how the oppressors have failed to halt their success in
the present times (the Winderby Girls fame and Irelands cultural influence).
The betraying sisters is also a metaphor. From the past, they are the family and
siblings of the sacrificial victim, and in present terms they are a reference to France and
Spain, the powerful Catholic nations that refuse to help their oppressed little sister,
Ireland. This metaphor serves to position the reader to examine the Irish Troubles from
a Catholic point of view, by portraying the Catholic population as a little sister, in need
of protection.
The poem juxtaposes archeology and the past with the present, with the persona
watching the Winderby Girl dieing and Heaney watching Ireland and the social results
of the occupation. This tension between memory and certainty causes the reader to
scrutinize the role that the artist had in the Irish Troubles, by looking at Heaneys role in
the civil war. However he argues also that in the face of tribal, intimate revenge the
individual finds it almost impossible to speak out against his own people.
Punishment is a poem that can be constructed on many levels. One level tells of the
plight of contemporary Irish women, whilst another describes the brutal treatment of an
Iron Age female. It discusses the treatment of Irelandby Britain and tells of various
aspects of the human experience, from betrayal to death. Ultimately it uses the link
between past and present to explore the various aspects and problems of the human
experience as well as the Irish Troubles via the use of figures of the past as meteaphors
for the present.
In conclusion, Funeral Rites discusses the contribution of males, the military and the
Church to the Irish troubles, and Punishment discusses the plight of individual groups
and minorities in Irish society and how they are affected by the Irish troubles. Both
poems investigate the various aspects of the human experience via the use of the link
between the past and present.
The poems Punishment and Funeral Rites draw upon a link between the past and
the present, often through the use of mythological figures, such as Gunnar, to explore
the various aspects and problems of the human experience.