English essay help

Do you have any ideas you want to develop already? If not, I’ll get my copies and help brainstorm. The poetry unit is my favourite and I intend to study English at uni so it wouldn’t be any trouble

So for Heaney, I would discuss:
• the speaker’s perception of how he and his siblings came about is described through the use of images of magic and childish wonder: ‘like a hypnotist/Unwinding is, he’d wind the instruments/Back into their lining’ - in the simile you get a sense of the power of a child to create whole magical world through the imagination which is something we lose as adults; the creative energy is celebrated in this poem but seems to diminish as we grow.
• Idea of magic also shown in speaker’s description of Kerlin: ‘Hyperborean, beyond-the-north wind blue’ (about his eyes)
• Could suggest how speaker’s perception as a child is limited because he frequently describes events through his senses: ‘fur-lined leather coat...spaniel-coloured’, ‘Those most, rosy, big soft hands of his’.
• Or maybe you get a sense of his childlike view of the world and it feels overwhelming because he has a lack of knowledge.
•The first section of the poem is the longest section and because it focuses on the speaker’s childhood, this suggests it has the biggest impact on the speaker - further suggested by the reference to Dr Kerlin in the 2nd section when the speaker is an adult.
• in part 2, perception is shown in the classical references because it shows the speaker’s perception is widening; note how part 1 was focused on the home as its setting. Now it’s talking about historical places in Greece - the world in his mind is expanding.
• in this section, speaker is also utilising his wisdom to view the world and his language becomes more sophisticated, e.g use of Latin.
• part 2 ideas extended in part 3
• part 4 speaker is exposed to reality in his mother’s death - not something he has previously experienced because of his limited worldview.
• Full stop after ‘deaths’ highlights finality of death - life is not the romanticised concept he believed it to be in part 1.
• contrast what speaker sees and what is real all throughout.

So for Heaney, I would discuss:
• the speaker’s perception of how he and his siblings came about is described through the use of images of magic and childish wonder: ‘like a hypnotist/Unwinding is, he’d wind the instruments/Back into their lining’ - in the simile you get a sense of the power of a child to create whole magical world through the imagination which is something we lose as adults; the creative energy is celebrated in this poem but seems to diminish as we grow.
• Idea of magic also shown in speaker’s description of Kerlin: ‘Hyperborean, beyond-the-north wind blue’ (about his eyes)
• Could suggest how speaker’s perception as a child is limited because he frequently describes events through his senses: ‘fur-lined leather coat...spaniel-coloured’, ‘Those most, rosy, big soft hands of his’.
• Or maybe you get a sense of his childlike view of the world and it feels overwhelming because he has a lack of knowledge.
•The first section of the poem is the longest section and because it focuses on the speaker’s childhood, this suggests it has the biggest impact on the speaker - further suggested by the reference to Dr Kerlin in the 2nd section when the speaker is an adult.
• in part 2, perception is shown in the classical references because it shows the speaker’s perception is widening; note how part 1 was focused on the home as its setting. Now it’s talking about historical places in Greece - the world in his mind is expanding.
• in this section, speaker is also utilising his wisdom to view the world and his language becomes more sophisticated, e.g use of Latin.
• part 2 ideas extended in part 3
• part 4 speaker is exposed to reality in his mother’s death - not something he has previously experienced because of his limited worldview.
• Full stop after ‘deaths’ highlights finality of death - life is not the romanticised concept he believed it to be in part 1.
• contrast what speaker sees and what is real all throughout.