Mid-Term Break
Seamus Heaney
I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.
In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.
The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand
And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand
In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.
Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,
Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year.
Break is a word that I would love the most in these days, going through tons of studies and assignment to finish, whatever the reason for my break would be. A restless heart for freedom, this is how I feel whenever I think of having a break. Even at this very moment, I am looking for the winter vacation break I would get after this one big semester. When I first read the title of a poem called “Mid-Term Break” by Seamus Heaney, even from just looking at the words, I could imagine the narrator having so much fun during the break.
For the first time reading, I just skimmed through the poem as if I were not really interested in it. However, skimming already told me this was not the kind of poem I expected. To be sincere, I thought of getting rid of this poem because the mood made me down for some reason. I did not see the detail of it at first, but the feeling I got was so unpleasant that I could slightly guess someone had died in the poem. This was merely a prediction at that moment, though. Reciting the poem word by word got me more sense on what it was talking about. It was just totally different from what I have expected.
What I have noticed in a pretty straight forward way from the start is that this poem has a clearly formal structure. It has a loose iambic meter in three line stanzas. The lines in three stanzas, third, fourth, and sixth, keep going and end the sentence in the next stanza which is quite interestingly abnormal. Unlike them, the other four stanzas, first, second, fifth, and seventh, have their lines end the sentence in themselves. Occasionally, there are literary devices like assonance or rhymes in this poem. To exemplify few of them, the parts where it says “ambulance arrived” in the fifth stanza and “four foot” in the seventh stanza make some assonance sounds. The line of the poem, “A four foot box, a foot for every year” forms a rhyming couplet and this helps emphasizing one of the crucial and basic atmospheres created in this poem.
The whole poem is basically about a death of a young child who seems to be the narrator’s younger brother. The difference between how other people react to this, and how the narrator’s feeling changes are the two main points I have focused on. The very first part shows the scene where the narrator was waiting for the class to end and was “counting bells”. However, the part where it says “knelling classes to a close” lets the readers infer that something not very pleasant might happen as the story goes on, since knell has two different meanings: sound of a bell, and an evil omen. The last line of the first stanza saying “at two o’clock out neighbors drove me home” that something unusual really has happened, and that his parents could not come to pick him up themselves.
In the first verse of the second stanza the narrator “met his father crying” in the porch. Although he was usually strong at other funerals, the sorrow he got from the death of someone, whom we do not know exactly who it was yet, seemed to be unbearable at the moment. “And Big Jim Evans” who must be their relative or a family friend told the narrator that “it was a hard blow”. From this line, it is clearer that someone very important to the narrator’s family had died.
The third and fourth stanzas keep on telling how other people at the funeral reacted on the death. The part where it describes the baby laughing and rocking the pram shows his lack of understanding about the concept of death. Because the baby was just innocent of all that kind of knowledge, he reacted very normally and this shows that life goes on. The infant was innocent in all sense and so was the narrator at first. He claims he was “embarrassed” because the old men at the funeral were “standing up to shake his hand”, which tells of his lack of comprehension. The part “whispers informed strangers I was the eldest” finally clarifies the person who died was the narrator’s younger brother.
Unlike the father, who was crying hard, the dead child’s mother did not react the same, but only “coughed out angry tearless sighs”. To be honest, I did not get why she was not sad, and wondered what would have caused the difference between the reactions of each parent. Even though it is said the society changed in a way that both parents raise their children equally, it is still true that there is difference in between the amount of responsibility and feelings that each parent has toward his or her children. It cannot be denied that moms tend to feel closer and put more love and literally raise their kids because the babies were literally “inside” them. On the other hand, dads, they also love their children, but it just can’t be the same as how moms do. This situation where only the dad was crying and the mom was being angry could be explained by these assumptions. The mom was just inexpressibly grieved that she was not even able to start crying or anything. She just had to put all her complex feelings inside her mind.
Starting from the fifth stanza, the narrator began to meet his dead brother. The ambulance arrived with “the corpse” of the baby, “stanched and bandaged by the nurses”. It is imaginable how gross looking the dead baby might have been. However, when the narrator met his dead brother again, the next morning in his room, his tone of describing the situation changed in a more positive way. He even depicted the white flowers as “snowdrops” which represents purity. Unlike he called the brother as a “corpse” last night, now he tells that he saw “him” for the first time in six weeks. Because the baby was dead, he got paler. The part where it says “wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple” contrasts with the part saying “stanched and bandaged”. The word “wearing” here inwardly means as if the baby could take off the poppy bruise. Actually the part where I could get sure of the fact that the brother was a baby was where it says “he lay in the four foot box as in his cot”. Almost at the end of the poem, readers get the cause of the baby’s death; “the bumper knocked him clear” tells them it was a traffic accident.
The last line of the poem, which was previously mentioned to form a rhyming couplet, is the most important line throughout the whole poem. “A four foot box” is a repetition from the seventh stanza and “a foot for every year” shows that the baby brother was four years old. This not only informs the readers about the age of the baby, but it also makes the situation even more tragic. Someone who died in the age of four, by a car accident, is unfortunate enough to raise the feeling that this is a complete tragedy. This line also makes the poem full of suggestion and the feeling that it should not end here as if there are some more stories that the narrator failed to tell.
As I first mentioned, the title was totally on the opposite side with the story that the poem was telling. Despite the happiness and the excitement I first got from the title “Mid-Term Break”, the poem itself betrayed me and shattered my fantasy of a mid-term break. Mid-term break for the narrator was not full of expectations on good memories anymore. The title and the poem more than just contrast with one another. They make an irony, and this adds the tragic atmosphere even in a harsher way.
The fact that this was a true story of the author of this poem, Seamus Heaney, enabled me to think more of my family and imagine how I would feel if a similar thing had happened to me. Although I do not have any siblings and am the only child, it would not be that much different than the death of any other family members. To be sincere, I would be more like the dad in the poem, who cries and expresses his feelings as well. I am not mature enough yet to either endure the sorrow or attain the stage of becoming unable to start wailing. I wonder if I would be like the mom in the poem when I grow up to have a child; this kind of tragedy should never happen, though.
Overall, I loved the way how this poem was able to first focus on other people’s reactions and then show the narrator’s true feelings. It was more than describing a sad story or just a tragic experience that one had to overcome. However, it was like my going through this hard process of overcoming the death of my relative. I could find my way to start thinking and caring more of my family, by imagining the situation analyzed from this poem. To briefly criticize the poem, it would have been better if the author put more emphasis on how each parent had reacted to this hardship, in more detailed phrases. That way, we would have been able to get closer to what he meant by the difference between the responses of them. Except that, I loved how the poet chose his words, how he picked the title in an ironic way and everything.
