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.
No comments:
Post a Comment