Wednesday, February 11, 2009

from the frontier of writing

In “The Frontier of Writing,” by Seamus Heaney, Heaney uses a variety of visual images as well as metaphors to convey the difficulties of writing. In this poem, Heaney discusses the barriers and obstacles that a writer needs to over come to start and write well. All of these metaphors and obstacles add overpoweringly to the tone and mood of the poem and help the reader get into the mindset of the narrator.
In “The Frontier of Writing,” Heaney uses visual imagery as the main indicator of what the message is in this poem. It also makes it possible for the reader to understand the narrator’s struggles. Words such as “tightness, catch, cover, and uncertain” all seem to help describe the tense situation before writing begins. And then in the second to last stanza he uses images such as “waterfall, black current or a tarmac road, and passed,” all of which seem to signify that he, the writer, is passing the troubles and obstacles of writing and is succeeding.
Heaney also uses a number of metaphors to hide his feelings about writing in a different story entirely. We see this in the first, second and third stanzas where the narrator is being interrogated by some troops and he is relating this to the first attempt to sit down and write, especially when you don’t want to. He also uses a similar metaphor, if not the same one in the fifth stanza to summarize the difficulty of continuing. However, we see an upbeat in the second to last stanza where Heaney seems to appear from behind his obstacles as a writer and proceed victoriously from behind a “waterfall” which represents him/writer conquering the difficulties and obstacles.
Overall, with out the tone and mood there would be no emotion in this poem, but do to the hints about how the writer feels, owed to the visual imagery and metaphors, we get an impression of it. The tone in mood in this piece start out wary and defeated. The narrator leaks and ambience of distain for writing/dealing with the guards, but by the end it transfers to a happy and upbeat mood, which resolves the poem effectively on a high note of accomplishment.
As you can see, throughout “The Frontier Of Writing,” Heaney struggles with the frustration of sitting down and writing. He emits this aura do to the acrid visual imagery of violence and oppression as well as the metaphors that house these images. However, eventually in the poem he conquers these obstacles and succeeds.

1 comment:

fadwa_saidwhat said...

I enjoyed reading this, especially when you stated how the tone in the beginning of the poem swithes to a sort of happy or more positive mood about writing. Well said!