The poem is about the death of Heaney's infant brother (Christopher) and how people (including himself) reacted

to this. The poem's title suggests a holiday but this break does not happen for pleasant reasons. For most of the poem Heaney writes of people's unnatural reactions, but at the end he is able to grieve honestly. The boredom of waiting appears in the counting of bells but knelling suggests a funeral bell, rather than a bell for lessons. The modern reader may be struck by the neighbours' driving the young Seamus home - his parents may not have a car (quite usual then Heaney was born in 1939, and is here at boarding school, so this is the 1950s) or, more likely, were too busy at home, and relied on their neighbours to help. The father, apparently always strong at other funerals, is distraught (very upset) by his child's death, while the mother is too angry to cry. Big Jim (apparently a family friend) makes an unfortunate pun - he means to speak of a metaphorical blow, of course. The young Seamus is made uneasy by the baby's happiness on seeing him, by hand shaking and euphemisms (evasions, like Sorry for my trouble), and by whispers about him. When late at night the child's body is returned Heaney sees this as the corpse (not a person). This contrasts wonderfully with the final section of the poem, where he is alone with his brother. Note the personal pronouns him, his, he - as opposed to the corpse. The calm mood is beautifully shown in the transferred epithet (Snowdrops/And candles soothed the bedside - literally they soothed the young Heaney). The flowers are a symbol in the poem, but also in reality for the family (a symbol of new life, after death). The bruise is seen as not really part of the boy - he is wearing it (a metaphor), as if it could come off. Heaney likens the bruise to the poppy, a flower linked with death and soothing of pain (opiates come from poppies). The child appears as if sleeping (a simile). We contrast the ugly corpse, stanched and bandaged, which becomes a sleeping child with no gaudy scars - dead, but, ironically, not disfigured. The last line of the poem is most poignant and skilful - the size of the coffin is the measure of the child's life. We barely notice that Heaney has twice referred to a box, almost a jokey name for a coffin. Overall, we note the contrast between the embarrassing scenes earlier and the final section where, alone with his brother, Heaney can be natural. The poem has a clear formal structure, in three line stanzas with a loose iambic metre. There are occasional rhymes but the poem's last two lines form a rhyming couplet, and emphasise the brevity of the child's life. Many of the lines run on - they are end stopped only in the last line of a stanza, and in three cases the lines run on from one stanza to the next. As in much of Heaney's poetry, there is no special vocabulary - mostly this is the common register of spoken English. his poem is a monologue spoken by Miss Havisham, a character in Dickens' Great Expectations. Jilted by her scheming fianc, she continues to wear her wedding dress and sit amid the remains of her wedding breakfast for the rest of her life, while she plots revenge on all men. She hates her spinster state - of which her unmarried family name constantly reminds her (which may explain the choice of title for the poem). She begins by telling the reader the cause of her troubles - her phrase beloved sweetheart bastard is a contradiction in terms (called an oxymoron). She tells us that she has prayed so hard (with eyes closed and hands pressed together) that her eyes have shrunk hard and her hands have sinews strong enough to strangle with - which fits her murderous wish for revenge. (Readers who know Dickens' novel well might think at this

point about Miss Havisham's ward, Estella - her natural mother, Molly, has strangled a rival, and has unusually strong hands.) Back to top Miss Havisham is aware of her own stink - because she does not ever change her clothes nor wash. She stays in bed and screams in denial. At other times she looks and asks herself who did this to her? She sometimes dreams almost tenderly or erotically of her lost lover, but when she wakes the hatred and anger return. Thinking of how she stabbed at the wedding cake she now wants to work out her revenge on a male corpse presumably that of her lover. The poem is written in four stanzas which are unrhymed. Many of the lines run on, and the effect is like normal speech. The poet uses many adjectives of colour - green, puce, white and red and lists parts of the body eyes, hands, tongue, mouth, ear and face. Sometimes the meaning is clear, but other lines are more open - and there are hints of violence in strangle, bite, bang and stabbed. It is not clear what exactly Miss Havisham would like to do on her long slow honeymoon, but we can be sure that it is not pleasant. Why does the poet omit Miss Havisham's title and refer to her by her surname only? Why does the poet write spinster on its own? What does Miss Havisham think about this word and its relevance to her? What is the effect of Nooooo and b-b-breaks? Why are these words written in this way? What is the meaning of the image of a red balloon bursting? How far does the poet want us to sympathize with Miss Havisham? Does the reader have to know about Great Expectations to understand the poem? Does Miss Havisham have a fair view of men? What do you think of her view of being an unmarried woman? Perhaps the most important part of the poem is the question who did this/to me? How far does the poem show that Miss Havisham is responsible for her own misery, and how far does it support her feelings of self-pity and her desire for revenge?