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Saturday, February 15, 2014

A reflection on "Punishment" by Seamus Heaney

I have always felt connected with Seamus Heaney’s poetry. He takes a memory or an experience or even a thought and manages to make it relevant and relatable even decades later. It would be impossible for me to read “Punishment” without being overcome by a strong feeling of sadness for this poem carries the realisation that we continue to live in a world where this kind of brutal treatment still exists. This poem revolves around acts of brutality as he first describes a girl in ancient times being killed for being a “little adulteress” and then alludes to how Irish rebels brutally treated women who married British soldiers.  The narrator merges these two separate acts of violence and torture by blurring their separation in time. With a mixture of verbs in the past and present tense I am left with an acute feeling that while the historical context has changed, the treatment of others and specifically women, has not.

What is ironic in this poem is how Heaney is able to bring this ancient dead girl alive through his vivid descriptions. This initial image of the girl being hung by “the halter at the nape of her neck” as the “wind on her naked front… blows her nipples” is haunting. Through the anatomical details Heaney contrasts this girl’s femininity with the dehumanising way she is being treated by society.


But what struck me the most with this poem was how the verses utilising the personal pronoun “I” like “I can feel the tug,” “I can see her drowned,” “I know the stones of silence,” and “I who have stood dumb” speak to me the loudest. Through the narrator’s thoughts I am forced to consider my role as an individual in the perpetration of this cruel behaviour. Thus the feeling of sadness I am overcome with is rooted in how while we think we live in a “civilised” society we continue to stand “dumb” in the face of such cruel and barbaric behaviour. Time may have passed but the suffering humans endure because of others still exists. 

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