Topic:
Key Points/Arguments
Themes Literary/Dramatic Devices Techniques of whole poem
Childhood ‘those nosy, rosy, big, soft hands’ – patriarchal ideal of hands, well known (examined them in past) Cyclical structure reflects coming
innocence ‘lined inside’ – adjective suggests rich material, juxtaposes wealth of doctor and family from room not bag, never mentions
‘unwinding us’ – sense of unpacking/creation woman/mother
Birth/creation ‘like an apron round itself’ – feminine kitchen so defied by doctor Regular tercet structure
Healing ‘ark by the keel…’ – stability provided by doctor
Religion ‘stooping’ – large structure
Death ‘getting the water ready’ – like a ritual
‘all thanks/ denied as he towelled hard and fast’ – antithesis of soft hands earlier, superior attitude – expects them to do
Fem/masc
this for him
Class
‘turned his eyes upon me’ – dehumanisation, cold, god-like
Poverty in ‘Hyperborean’ – race of ancient greeks, lived in perfect world, suggests the incredibility of creating a child
Ireland and ‘porcelin’, ‘white’ and ‘sawdust’ – cold unemotive parts of profession, also factory like feel
taboo subjects ‘toe,foor,shin,arm,cock’ – listing appears grotesque, imagines frankensteinesque scene, baby is assembled by doctor
of sex and birth ‘poeta doctus’ – shift in social class for Heaney, ‘Asclepius’ – god of healing, poetry is what is good for Heaney’s soul
‘Lourdes’ – religious healing
Doctor is ‘nearly’ x2 – suggests illness
Frankenstein ‘Doctor Kerlin at the steamed up glass/ pink index finger dot-faced man’ – links back to first part, idea of hands being
and Promethean creators returns
‘miraculum’ – educated, high class
‘baby bits all came together swimming’ – hallucination (alliteration) water symbolic of giving life
‘blinking and shaky’ – antithesis, weak to childless, circular nature of life – you begin and end weak
‘chemotherapy’ – spiritual belief, antithesis to ritual of cancer treatment
‘undarkening door’ – juxtaposes doctors ‘darkening door’, she will never make that visit to him
‘the room I came from and the rest of us all came from’ – memory distorted, collective
‘again and again, bridal/ And usual and useful at births and deaths.’ – ceremonial, sheets enter spectrum of cyclical life
‘doctor brought for us all/ When I was asleep’ – suggests he did it all, finds answers to livd through eachother and the
home, passive motherly role
