Posted by Ace on Sunday, December 2, 2007 at 9:46pm.
In Seamus Heaney's "Blackberry Picking," Heaney uses intense language, visual imagery, gustatory imagery auditory imagery and metaphors to enable the reader to experience blackberry picking as closely as possible without physically engaging in the activity. It makes blackberry picking much more than a childish experience. Heaney diction shows us the disappointment of growing up and of a summer love. In this paragraph, check for comma uses in a series and correct possessive form.
Heaney uses visual imagery, gustatory and auditory to enhance the poem’s depth of feeling and to brings the poem to life from beginning to end. The poem shows a child’s hope and as the child grows its disappointment. The first part of the poem shows a child's excitement of picking the berries, and his enthusiasm when carrying it out. At first, Heaney presents the taste(gustatory imagery) of the blackberries as a pleasure referring to sweet “flesh,” and to “thickened wine: summer's blood”and to “lust. He even describes as “glossy purple”.The first half of the poem represents childhood while the second half represents adulthood. This helps the reader interpret and relate to the poets own feelings of helplessness in that he is used to life’s disappointments. Heaney uses intensive words such as “tinkling”(an auditory image) to create sounds in the reader’s mind to create feelings for the reader. Each line of the poem represents an increase in wisdom of knowledge gained from life’s lessons. Each line of the poem shows us the disappointment as one grows up. For example “Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew it would not,” shows the view of a disappointed adult who wanted blackberry picking (childhood) to last forever, but knows it will not. In this paragraph, check for missing words, comma uses for non-essential clauses/phrases and after introductory elements, unnecessary commas, spaces after punctuation, unclosed quotation marks, correct possessive form, clear connection between pronouns and their antecedents, include poem’s line number(s) after quotations.
The diction Heaney uses has romantic connotations, which allows the reader to infer the deeper meaning of a summer love. The ripening of the blackberries refers to the "ripening" of young love when two young people fall in love. "You ate the first one. . . and had a lust for picking," infers that just like when one starts picking berries one can't stop picking them because of their tempting taste, that is how love is. Nevertheless, everything always has to have an end and love is no exception, as the poem comes to the end with the rotting of the blackberries, it shows that the relationship ends as well. By the end of the poem, the imagery turns sad and sour and “I always felt like crying.” Later, they “hoarded” the blackberries until “the sweet flesh would sour” just like blackberries love that is not able to stay sweet will eventually break apart. At the end when the fruit rots "Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not" summer romances ends. In this paragraph, check for comma uses for non-essential clauses/phrases and in compound sentences, run-ons, possessive form.
Heaney’s description of picking blackberries is conveyed through his use of diction, imagery, and metaphors to create the experience that the poet feels to the reader. It also allows one to imply many meanings such as how things never quite live up to our expectations, like a summer love and that everything must always have an end. Just like a summer love ends that is how childhood must end as well. Blackberry picking is like a metaphor for our the disappointments of life In this paragraph, check for clarity (read your text aloud to find awkward places, unclear references, or wording that doesn’t make sense), check for comma uses, use of “like” before a clause? Also end punctuation.
The analysis of the poem is good – line by line. Good progression. Nice combination of the sensory details and imagery, too.
thanks
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