literature essay on mid term break

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Exploring Seamus Heaney’s Mid-Term Break: A Literary Analysis

• Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney’s poem “Mid-Term Break” is a poignant reflection on the death of a young child. The poem explores themes of grief, loss, and the fragility of life. In this literary analysis, we will delve deeper into the poem’s language, structure, and imagery to understand how Heaney effectively conveys these themes and emotions to his readers.

The Poet: Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney is one of the most celebrated poets of the 20th century. Born in Northern Ireland in 1939, Heaney grew up in a rural farming community and was deeply influenced by the landscape and people of his homeland. Heaney’s poetry often explores themes of identity, memory, and the natural world, and his work has been praised for its lyrical beauty and emotional depth. Heaney was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995, and his legacy continues to inspire and influence writers around the world. In this article, we will explore one of Heaney’s most famous poems, “Mid-Term Break,” and analyze its themes, imagery, and language.

The Poem: Mid-Term Break

Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” is a poignant and emotional poem that explores the themes of death, loss, and grief. The poem is written in the first person, and the speaker is a young boy who has returned home from school to attend the funeral of his younger brother. The poem is divided into three stanzas, each of which explores a different aspect of the speaker’s experience. The first stanza describes the speaker’s journey home from school, while the second stanza focuses on the scene at the family home, where the speaker encounters his grieving parents and sees his brother’s body laid out in the room. The final stanza describes the funeral itself, and the speaker’s feelings of isolation and detachment from the other mourners. Throughout the poem, Heaney uses vivid imagery and powerful language to convey the speaker’s emotions and the sense of loss that permeates the poem. Overall, “Mid-Term Break” is a powerful and moving poem that explores the universal themes of death and grief in a deeply personal and affecting way.

The Theme: Death and Loss

Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” is a poignant poem that explores the theme of death and loss. The poem is based on the death of Heaney’s younger brother, Christopher, who died at the age of four. Heaney’s use of vivid imagery and powerful language creates a sense of sadness and grief that is palpable throughout the poem. The poem is divided into three stanzas, each of which explores a different aspect of death and loss. The first stanza describes the arrival of Heaney’s family members at the family home, where they are waiting for the arrival of the body. The second stanza describes Heaney’s encounter with his brother’s body in the coffin, and the third stanza describes the funeral and the aftermath of the death. Through his use of language and imagery, Heaney captures the sense of loss and grief that accompanies death, and he explores the ways in which people cope with the loss of a loved one. Overall, “Mid-Term Break” is a powerful and moving poem that offers a poignant reflection on the theme of death and loss.

The Tone: Grief and Sadness

The tone of Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” is one of grief and sadness. The poem is a reflection on the death of the speaker’s younger brother, and the emotions that come with such a loss are palpable throughout the piece. Heaney’s use of language and imagery creates a sense of heaviness and sorrow, as the speaker navigates the aftermath of the tragedy. The poem is a powerful exploration of grief, and the ways in which it can impact a person’s life.

The Structure: Free Verse

Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” is a poem written in free verse, which means that it does not follow a specific rhyme scheme or meter. Instead, the poem is structured through the use of enjambment, or the continuation of a sentence or phrase across multiple lines. This creates a sense of fluidity and naturalness in the poem, as if the words are flowing freely from the speaker’s thoughts and emotions. Additionally, the lack of a strict structure allows Heaney to experiment with the placement of words and phrases, emphasizing certain ideas or emotions through their placement on the page. Overall, the free verse structure of “Mid-Term Break” contributes to the poem’s emotional impact and allows Heaney to convey his grief and loss in a powerful and poignant way.

The Imagery: Visual and Sensory

Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” is a poem that is rich in visual and sensory imagery. The poet uses vivid descriptions to create a powerful and emotional impact on the reader. The imagery in the poem is not only visual but also sensory, as it appeals to the reader’s sense of touch, smell, and sound.

One of the most striking images in the poem is the description of the “poppy bruise” on the baby’s forehead. This image is not only visual but also tactile, as the reader can almost feel the softness of the baby’s skin and the tenderness of the bruise. The use of the word “poppy” also adds a sensory dimension to the image, as it evokes the smell and texture of the flower.

Another powerful image in the poem is the description of the “four foot box” that the speaker’s brother is laid in. This image is both visual and sensory, as the reader can imagine the size and shape of the box, as well as the weight and texture of the body inside. The use of the word “box” also adds a sense of confinement and finality to the image, emphasizing the finality of death.

Overall, the imagery in “Mid-Term Break” is a key element in creating the emotional impact of the poem. The visual and sensory descriptions help to bring the reader into the world of the poem and to experience the grief and loss of the speaker.

The Language: Symbolism and Metaphor

In Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break,” the language used is rich in symbolism and metaphor, adding depth and complexity to the poem’s themes. The title itself is a metaphor, referring to the break from school that the speaker is experiencing, but also hinting at the idea of a break in the speaker’s life. The use of the word “break” suggests something that is shattered or broken, which foreshadows the devastating news that the speaker receives later in the poem.

Throughout the poem, Heaney uses vivid imagery to convey the speaker’s emotions and experiences. For example, the image of the “poppy bruise” on the baby’s forehead is a powerful symbol of the fragility of life and the violence that can disrupt it. The use of the word “bruise” suggests something that is painful and temporary, but also hints at the idea of something that is damaged or broken.

Another important symbol in the poem is the image of the “snowdrops” that the speaker’s mother has arranged on the baby’s cot. Snowdrops are often associated with death and mourning, and their presence in the poem adds to the sense of sadness and loss that permeates the speaker’s experience.

Overall, the language in “Mid-Term Break” is carefully crafted to convey the complex emotions and themes of the poem. Through the use of symbolism and metaphor, Heaney creates a powerful and moving portrait of grief and loss.

The Setting: A Family Home

The setting of Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” is a family home, specifically the home of the narrator’s parents. The poem begins with the narrator being brought home from school by his neighbors, and he enters the house to find his father crying. The details of the home are sparse, but the emotions and actions of the family members within it are vividly portrayed. The home becomes a symbol of the family’s grief and the disruption of their normal routine. The setting of the family home is crucial to the poem’s exploration of loss and mourning, as it is the place where the narrator must confront the reality of his brother’s death.

The Characters: The Family Members

The family members in Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” play a crucial role in the poem’s emotional impact. The speaker’s parents are described as being “stricken” and “embarrassed” by the death of their son, while his younger brothers are “crying” and “sniffling” in the background. The speaker himself is detached and numb, unable to fully process the tragedy that has befallen his family. Through their reactions and interactions, Heaney paints a vivid portrait of a family in mourning, struggling to come to terms with their loss.

The Emotions: Shock and Disbelief

The emotions of shock and disbelief are prevalent throughout Seamus Heaney’s poem “Mid-Term Break.” The speaker, who is a young boy, is forced to confront the death of his younger brother. The poem begins with the speaker being taken out of school and brought home, where he is met with the sight of his brother’s body. The shock of this event is evident in the speaker’s inability to comprehend what has happened. He describes his brother’s body as “a poppy bruise” and notes that he “lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.” The use of the word “cot” suggests that the speaker is struggling to accept that his brother is truly gone. The disbelief is further emphasized when the speaker notes that his father is crying, which is something he has never seen before. The shock and disbelief that the speaker experiences are universal emotions that anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one can relate to. Heaney’s use of language and imagery effectively conveys the overwhelming emotions that come with such a tragic event.

The Impact: Cultural and Historical Context

Seamus Heaney’s poem “Mid-Term Break” is a poignant reflection on the death of his younger brother. The poem is set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a period of political and social unrest that lasted from the late 1960s to the late 1990s. Heaney’s work is deeply rooted in the cultural and historical context of Northern Ireland, and his poetry often explores the themes of violence, loss, and identity in the face of conflict.

Heaney was born in 1939 in County Derry, Northern Ireland, and grew up in a rural farming community. He was deeply influenced by the landscape and language of his childhood, and his poetry often reflects his connection to the natural world. However, Heaney’s work is also shaped by the political and social context of Northern Ireland, particularly the Troubles.

The Troubles were a period of intense violence and political conflict in Northern Ireland, characterized by bombings, shootings, and other acts of terrorism. The conflict was rooted in the division between the Protestant and Catholic communities in Northern Ireland, and it had a profound impact on the lives of those who lived through it. Heaney’s poetry often reflects the trauma and loss experienced by individuals and communities during this period.

In “Mid-Term Break,” Heaney explores the impact of his brother’s death on his family and community. The poem is a powerful reflection on grief, loss, and the fragility of life. Heaney’s use of language and imagery is both subtle and powerful, and the poem has become one of his most famous works.

Overall, Heaney’s poetry is deeply rooted in the cultural and historical context of Northern Ireland. His work explores the themes of violence, loss, and identity in the face of conflict, and it has had a profound impact on the literary world. “Mid-Term Break” is a powerful reflection on grief and loss, and it remains a testament to the enduring power of poetry to capture the human experience.

The Literary Devices: Alliteration and Enjambment

Alliteration and enjambment are two literary devices that Seamus Heaney employs in his poem “Mid-Term Break” to create a sense of rhythm and flow. Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words, while enjambment is the continuation of a sentence or phrase onto the next line without a pause. In the first stanza, Heaney uses alliteration to emphasize the silence and stillness of the room: “I sat all morning in the college sick bay / Counting bells knelling classes to a close.” The repetition of the “s” sound in “sat,” “sick,” and “classes” creates a sense of hushed quietness. Heaney also uses enjambment throughout the poem to create a sense of movement and progression. For example, in the second stanza, the sentence “At ten o’clock the ambulance arrived” continues onto the next line, emphasizing the suddenness and urgency of the situation. These literary devices not only add to the overall effect of the poem, but also showcase Heaney’s skill as a poet.

The Poetic Techniques: Repetition and Irony

Repetition and irony are two of the most prominent poetic techniques used by Seamus Heaney in his poem “Mid-Term Break.” Repetition is used to emphasize the emotional impact of the events that take place in the poem. For example, the repetition of the word “knelling” in the first stanza creates a sense of foreboding and sets the tone for the rest of the poem. Similarly, the repetition of the phrase “a four foot box” in the final stanza emphasizes the finality of death and the sense of loss that the speaker feels.

Irony is also used throughout the poem to create a sense of tension and to highlight the contrast between the speaker’s emotions and the actions of those around him. For example, the fact that the speaker’s father is “crying” and “whispering” in the second stanza is ironic because it is not the speaker’s father who has died, but rather his younger brother. Similarly, the fact that the “old men” in the fourth stanza shake the speaker’s hand and tell him that they are “sorry for his trouble” is ironic because they do not truly understand the depth of his grief.

Overall, the use of repetition and irony in “Mid-Term Break” serves to enhance the emotional impact of the poem and to highlight the complex emotions that the speaker experiences in the wake of his brother’s death.

The Analysis: Line by Line

The opening line of Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” sets the tone for the entire poem: “I sat all morning in the college sick bay.” The use of the word “sick bay” immediately creates a sense of unease and suggests that something is not quite right. The fact that the speaker has been there all morning also implies that this is not a minor illness or injury. As the poem progresses, we learn that the speaker’s younger brother has died, and the use of the word “sick bay” takes on a new meaning. It becomes a place of waiting and mourning, a liminal space between life and death. The line also establishes the speaker’s detachment from the events that are about to unfold. He is physically present, but emotionally removed, a theme that is echoed throughout the poem.

The Interpretation: Multiple Meanings

One of the most intriguing aspects of Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” is its ability to be interpreted in multiple ways. On the surface, the poem appears to be a straightforward account of a young boy’s experience of his brother’s death. However, upon closer examination, it becomes clear that there are deeper layers of meaning at play. Some readers interpret the poem as a commentary on the fragility of life, while others see it as a meditation on the complexities of grief. Still others view it as a critique of societal expectations surrounding death and mourning. Ultimately, the beauty of “Mid-Term Break” lies in its ability to speak to readers on a variety of levels, inviting us to engage with its themes and ideas in our own unique ways.

The Significance: Heaney’s Legacy

Seamus Heaney’s legacy is one that continues to inspire and influence writers and readers alike. His ability to capture the essence of Irish culture and history through his poetry has earned him a place among the greatest poets of the 20th century. Heaney’s work is characterized by its vivid imagery, lyrical language, and deep sense of humanity. His poems often explore themes of identity, memory, and the natural world, and his unique perspective on these subjects has made him a beloved figure in the literary world. Heaney’s legacy is one that will continue to be celebrated for generations to come, as his poetry remains a testament to the power of language and the enduring human spirit.

The Criticism: Alternative Perspectives

While Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” has been widely praised for its poignant portrayal of grief and loss, there are also alternative perspectives that offer criticism of the poem. One such perspective is that the poem is too detached and emotionless, failing to fully capture the depth of the speaker’s feelings. Critics argue that the poem’s sparse language and lack of overt emotionality create a distance between the reader and the speaker, making it difficult to fully empathize with the speaker’s experience.

Another criticism of the poem is that it perpetuates traditional gender roles and stereotypes. The poem’s portrayal of the mother as a stoic figure who is unable to express her emotions is seen by some as a reinforcement of the idea that women are expected to be passive and emotionally restrained. Additionally, the poem’s focus on the father’s reaction to the death of his son, while largely ignoring the mother’s grief, has been criticized as a perpetuation of the idea that men are expected to be strong and unemotional in the face of tragedy.

Despite these criticisms, “Mid-Term Break” remains a powerful and widely studied poem, offering a complex and nuanced exploration of grief and loss. While some may find fault with the poem’s emotional distance or gendered portrayals, others may see these elements as integral to the poem’s larger themes and messages. Ultimately, the poem’s enduring popularity and critical acclaim speak to its ability to provoke thought and inspire discussion, even in the face of alternative perspectives and criticisms.

Mid-Term Break Summary & Analysis by Seamus Heaney

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

“Mid-Term Break” was published by Irish poet Seamus Heaney in his 1966 book Death of a Naturalist. The poem is about Heaney’s brother, who was killed by a car in 1953 when he was only 4 years old, and Heaney only 14. Personal and direct, the poem describes the unexpected ways his family’s grieves as they confront this tragedy. It also notes the way that grief may upset traditional social roles.

• Read the full text of “Mid-Term Break”

The Full Text of “Mid-Term Break”

“mid-term break” summary, “mid-term break” themes.

The Nature of Grief

Line-by-line explanation & analysis of “mid-term break”.

I sat all ... ... drove me home.

In the porch ... ... a hard blow.

The baby cooed ... ... for my trouble'.

Lines 11-13

Whispers informed strangers ... ... angry tearless sighs.

Lines 14-15

At ten o'clock ... ... by the nurses.

Lines 16-18

Next morning I ... ... in six weeks.

Lines 18-22

Paler now, ... ... for every year.

“Mid-Term Break” Symbols

• Line 2: “bells”

• Line 16: “Snowdrops”

• Line 17: “candles”

“Mid-Term Break” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

End-stopped line.

• Line 2: “close.”
• Line 3: “home.”
• Line 4: “crying—”
• Line 5: “stride—”
• Line 6: “blow.”
• Line 10: “trouble'.”
• Line 11: “eldest,”
• Line 13: “sighs.”
• Line 15: “nurses.”
• Line 18: “now,”
• Line 19: “temple,”
• Line 20: “cot.”
• Line 21: “clear.”
• Line 22: “year.”
• Lines 1-2: “bay / Counting”
• Lines 7-8: “pram / When”
• Lines 8-9: “embarrassed / By”
• Lines 9-10: “hand / And”
• Lines 12-13: “hand / In”
• Lines 14-15: “arrived / With”
• Lines 16-17: “Snowdrops / And”
• Lines 17-18: “him / For”
• Line 8: “in, and”
• Line 12: “school, as”
• Line 15: “corpse, stanched”
• Line 16: “room. Snowdrops”
• Line 17: “bedside; I”
• Line 18: “weeks. Paler”
• Line 21: “scars, the”
• Line 22: “box, a”

Alliteration

• Line 1: “c,” “b”
• Line 2: “C,” “b,” “c,” “l,” “c,” “l”
• Line 3: “cl”
• Line 4: “m,” “m”
• Line 5: “H,” “h”
• Line 12: “A,” “a,” “a,” “m,” “m,” “h,” “m,” “h”
• Line 13: “h,” “a”
• Line 14: “A,” “a,” “a”
• Line 15: “b,” “b”
• Line 16: “S”
• Line 17: “s,” “s”
• Line 18: “F,” “f,” “s,” “P”
• Line 19: “p,” “b,” “h,” “l”
• Line 20: “H,” “l,” “f,” “f”
• Line 22: “f,” “f,” “f,” “f”
• Line 2: “e,” “e,” “o”
• Line 3: “o,” “o,” “o”
• Line 4: “I,” “y,” “y”
• Line 5: “a,” “a,” “i,” “i”
• Line 6: “i,” “i,” “i,” “i,” “a,” “a”
• Line 7: “a,” “au,” “a,” “a”
• Line 8: “I,” “a,” “I,” “a”
• Line 9: “a,” “a”
• Line 11: “i,” “i”
• Line 12: “a,” “a,” “a”
• Line 13: “a,” “a,” “i”
• Line 14: “A,” “a,” “i”
• Line 15: “a,” “a,” “a”
• Line 16: “o,” “oo”
• Line 17: “A,” “a,” “oo,” “i,” “I”
• Line 18: “i,” “i”
• Line 19: “o,” “o,” “e,” “e”
• Line 20: “o,” “i,” “i,” “o”
• Line 21: “au,” “o”
• Line 22: “ou,” “oo,” “oo,” “o,” “y,” “ea”
• Line 1: “s,” “ll,” “n,” “n,” “c,” “ll,” “s,” “ck,” “b”
• Line 2: “C,” “n,” “b,” “ll,” “s,” “kn,” “ll,” “cl,” “ss,” “s,” “cl,” “s”
• Line 3: “t,” “t,” “cl,” “r,” “r,” “r,” “m,” “m”
• Line 4: “m,” “m,” “th,” “r,” “r”
• Line 5: “H,” “h,” “n,” “n,” “r,” “n,” “h,” “s,” “r,” “d”
• Line 6: “d,” “b,” “w”
• Line 7: “b,” “b,” “c,” “d,” “nd,” “d,” “nd,” “r,” “ck,” “d,” “r,” “m”
• Line 8: “c,” “m,” “n,” “n,” “m”
• Line 9: “d,” “m,” “n,” “nd,” “m,” “nd”
• Line 10: “t,” “rr,” “t,” “r”
• Line 11: “rs,” “r,” “s,” “t,” “r,” “rs,” “s,” “s,” “t”
• Line 12: “m,” “m,” “h,” “d,” “m,” “h,” “d”
• Line 13: “h,” “r,” “s,” “t,” “r,” “t,” “r,” “ss,” “s,” “s”
• Line 14: “t,” “t,” “rr”
• Line 15: “r,” “s,” “s,” “n,” “d,” “nd,” “b,” “nd,” “d,” “b”
• Line 16: “S,” “d,” “s”
• Line 17: “nd,” “nd,” “s,” “s,” “d,” “e,” “s,” “d,” “s”
• Line 18: “F,” “r,” “f,” “r,” “st,” “t,” “s,” “x,” “s,” “P”
• Line 19: “p,” “pp,” “l,” “t,” “p,” “l”
• Line 20: “l,” “f,” “r,” “f,” “b,” “x,” “c”
• Line 21: “c,” “r,” “m,” “r,” “ck,” “m,” “c”
• Line 22: “f,” “r,” “f,” “t,” “f,” “t,” “f,” “r,” “r,” “y,” “y,” “r”
• Line 20: “He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.”
• Line 19: “Wearing a poppy bruise”

Polysyndeton

• Line 7: “The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram”
• Line 20: “four-foot box”
• Line 22: “A four-foot box, a foot for every year.”

“Mid-Term Break” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• In His Stride
• Four-foot box
• (Location in poem: Line 1: “college”)

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Mid-Term Break”

Rhyme scheme, “mid-term break” speaker, “mid-term break” setting, literary and historical context of “mid-term break”, more “mid-term break” resources, external resources.

Seamus Heaney's 10 Best Poems — A list of Heaney's 10 Best Poems from the Telegraph—offering a good introduction to his broader work.

Heaney Restrospective — A critical appraisal of the poet's life and work, from Naomi Schalit.

Seamus Heaney's Life — A detailed biography from the Poetry Foundation.

Seamus Heaney Reads "Mid-Term Break" — The poet reads his own poem aloud for the Poetry Ireland Lunchtime Reading Series.

Heaney's Family on Life with the Poet — In an article for the Guardian Newspaper, Seamus Heaney's family reflect on life with Heaney.

LitCharts on Other Poems by Seamus Heaney

Blackberry-Picking

Death of a Naturalist

Out of the Bag

Personal Helicon

Requiem for the Croppies

Storm on the Island

The Tollund Man

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

Poetry Prof

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Mid-Term Break

Seamus Heaney shares with us a sad memory from his childhood.

“… the most skilful and profound poet writing in English today.” Edward Mendelson (NYT Review of Opened Ground)

Seamus Heaney is one of  the most recognisable names in English-language poetry . It’s quite possible that you could hear his writerly voice as a child, study him as you get older (his poems are often anthologised or selected for GCSE and A Level study) and come to regard him as an old familiar friend through your adult life. Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995 and turned down the position of Poet Laureate when it was offered to him,  possibly because he regards himself as Irish, not British : after lunching with the Queen he said, “I have nothing against the Queen personally”; but in 1982 he published the lines, “My passport’s green/ No glass of ours was ever raised/ To toast the Queen.” Before  his death in 2013 he wrote about Irish community life, people’s connection with the land ( Storm on the Island; Bogland ), politics and history (particularly The Troubles), his own rural upbringing and journey to becoming a writer ( Follower; Digging; Personal Helicon ). A recognisable Heaney trait is filtering subject matter through a child’s looking-glass lens. His most famous poems ( Death of a Naturalist  and  Blackberry Picking) are directly concerned with childhood, in particular the loss of childhood innocence as one grows older.  Mid-Term Break (from the collection  Death of a Naturalist , written in 1966) shares this theme, which it explores through recounting an experience from the poet’s own history; when Seamus Heaney was still a child, his younger brother Christopher was hit and killed by a car:

On first reading, apart from obviously being written in stanzaic form (which we’ll get to later) the poem is actually quite, well… unpoetic! In some respects, it’s more like a narrative in the way it tells the story of Heaney’s discovery of his brother’s death. The poem contains clear narrative features such as the building of suspense (see how the poem counts down time for us:  two o’clock, ten o’clock, next morning ), direct speech (‘sorry for my trouble’ ) and even brief  characterisation : I met my father crying – he had always taken funerals in his stride –  In a way,  Mid-Term Break is a narrative: it follows a well-worn narrative pattern called the ‘rites of passage’ by which a young person must leave the safety (and ignorance) of childhood and undergo a journey of discovery. Along the way, the child acquires special knowledge and undergoes a transformation, shedding the childish self like a snake sheds a skin and emerging as a new, older and wiser person. That’s why the poem begins in the  college sick bay , which represents the safe world of a child; soon the boy is taken home , where he must pass through various adult hands, all ushering him towards the place where he will discover the truth hiding at the heart of the poem. The  room in which he encounters his brother – and has his first experience of the reality of death – is the place where this awful knowledge is contained and it is no accident that he is left alone to experience his first taste of the adult world all by himself.

At the start of the story, though, the boy is unaware of what lies in store; both he and we, the readers, wonder what is happening to take him out of class and home from school early. There are a couple of clues:  knelling is a word used only to describe the sound of a bell; it is especially associated with bells that ring to proclaim somebody’s death. In a ‘rites of passage’ story, in order for a person to grow and change their childish self must symbolically die. As well as  foreshadowing  the death of the speaker’s younger brother, the bells he hears  c ounting down  c lasses to a  c lose also signify the death of his childhood and induction into the adult world.  Alliteration  plays a part here. Look at all those hard C sounds in the line above, and add  c ollege si ck bay and  two o’ c lo ck .  This kind of alliteration is known as guttural. Guttural is good at exposing negative emotions, and also resembles the ticking of a clock, counting down the time until the boy must experience the truth that is waiting for him.

When the boy arrives home he meets his father standing on the  porch . Here is an example of a ‘threshold’: a boundary between two ‘worlds.’ If the school represented a ‘safe’ place where he was sheltered and protected from hard truth, his house is the site of his revelation and the place where he will be exposed to the truth about how things are in the ‘real’ world. The  porch is the dividing line between these two ‘worlds.’ His father (and  Big Jim Evans ) function as symbolic gatekeepers. They know the truth, but do not reveal it to the boy, except through cryptic clues such as  it had been a hard blow, language that suggests concealed emotion and also echoes the accident that killed his younger brother. Instead they usher him inside, where he will be passed from hand to hand, until he reaches his brother’s bedside . At this point, he will be by himself and have to face the reality of the world alone. 

Just as in a good narrative,  perspective is a crucial reason why the poem works so well. The speaker’s youth and naïvete brings a touch of  irony into the poem. Each stanza gives more little clues, information hiding in plain sight, that the boy’s youth prevents him from fully understanding. But as readers looking in from outside, it’s relatively easy for us to piece together the puzzle at the heart of the story. The first puzzle-piece is probably the word knelling  in stanza 1. It’s the kind of word a young boy wouldn’t know (the adult writer uses it as he looks back on his childhood experience). In stanza 2 – embedded inside two  hyphens  as an extra detail – is the admission that the speaker’s father  had always taken funerals in his stride . In the third stanza old men stand up in formal way to  shake my hand , and in the fourth we can infer from the  whispers that  informed strangers I was the eldest  that something has happened to a member of the boy’s family. By the time the  ambulance arrived with the corpse most readers will be prepared for the awful knowledge of the boy’s younger brother’s tragic accident. 

Written about a childhood time when nothing in the adult world makes sense (you can almost hear the boy thinking, ‘Why are they whispering? Why are these old men standing up to shake my hand?’) the  voice of the speaker conveys Heaney’s thoughts and curiously detached feelings through this bewildering day. Interestingly, most of the  diction in the poem is cool, calm and collected, and the young speaker comes across as matter-of-fact above anything else. Read the poem again to try and find examples of emotive language – it’s tough, right? That’s not to say the poem isn’t emotional, but emotion comes more from the reader’s grasping of the situation than from the poem itself. The boy himself reports everything with simplicity:  stanched and bandaged is quite clinical;  I saw him for the first time in six weeks a simple matter-of-fact statement. The clinical, detached  tone aptly conveys the way a young boy might approach his first encounter with death. Too young to really grasp the significance of events, he reacts in a way that might even be construed as indifferent. 

Something the poem explores wonderfully well is the stoic, masculine way that men deal with their emotions, particularly grief. The speaker’s father had been crying, but the poem is quick to point out that normally he takes things in their stride.  Big Jim Evans is unable to use straightforward language when talking to the young boy and euphemises his feelings as  a hard blow .  Euphemism is language that is uses to disguise, or avoid, speaking hard truths and it’s again ironic that somebody  big, when faced with a harsh reality, finds it difficult to confront.  Old men stand up to shake my hand reveals how formality and custom are used (again by men) to manage difficult emotions. Whispers is an onomatopoeia that conjures the sound of people talking around him, even behind his back, but hesitant when it comes to admitting the truth. The mother, true to type, is permitted to cough out her angry tearless sighs . She has been exhausted by her outpouring of emotion: by contrast, the men keep theirs firmly shut away inside. A detail that throws the men’s stoicism into sharp relief is the mention of the baby who cooed and laughed in the pram. The contrast of such unknowing, innocent behaviour with the reserved and awkward behaviour of the adults only reinforces the formality of their actions.

According to the poetic tradition of the  turn , or  volta , at a certain point in a poem the focus shifts, the tone changes or a counterpoint is presented.  Mid-Term Break’s turn is disguised by form, hidden inside the fifth stanza. After the description of mother’s  sighs  our attention is taken away from the reactions of those gathered in the house and placed onto the ambulance, there to deliver the body of the speaker’s younger brother.  At ten o’clock is the subtle marker used to make this change. After this point, the poem homes in on the boy’s experience only and we are with him through the terrible walk up the stairs, into the room where his brother’s body is laid in state  stanched (like the more common ‘staunch,’ this word means to restrict the flow of blood; you can read it to mean ‘cleaned’)  and bandaged by nurses .  Assonance plays a part in this stanza: the letter A flows through the lines in all kinds of words such as a ngry , a mbul a nce a rrived , st a nched a nd b a nd a ged . Assonance helps manage the tension in the poem at this crucial moment – the boy is only steps away from entering the room himself and coming face to face with his brother after his awful accident.

Once he enters the site of revelation, the poem intensifies its use of imagery.  The evidence of his brother’s wound is described as a poppy bruise , the vivid red colour that flashes into our minds when we read poppy contrasts with the white images suggested by paler now ,   stanched and bandaged and  snowdrops (white flowers)  and candles soothed the bedside . Like the  knelling bells , this use of language comes from the older writer looking back on his childish persona. Look again at the word ‘soothed.’ Flowers and candles are  personified to have a calming effect on the scene, and we are invited to compare the ritual trappings of funerals with the formality of behaviour displayed by the men earlier in the poem. The votive candles have a particularly calming effect, bathing the scene in warmth despite the ‘cold’ setting and tone. Perhaps Heaney wants us to think that the objects in the room, the ritual ‘embalming’ of the corpse – like the words and behaviour of the people downstairs – are all bent to the same purpose: the dulling of grief in order to allow men to cope with, and display stoicism in the face of, this ‘unmanly’ emotion.

The importance of ritual is echoed in the poem’s form.  Heaney is a traditional poet, and his poetry gestures towards pre-modern times .  Mid-Term Break is written in unrhymed  tercets  (a tercet is a group of three lines) and Heaney employs  stanzaic form to echo both the rituals surrounding death and funerals, and to frame the procession by which the boy is brought from his school to the bedside. Try breaking the journey into stages, imagining him passing various thresholds along the way: he leaves the  college sick bay , passes through the  porch into the main house, and goes up to  the room . Each stanza narrows and focuses the boy’s journey until he reaches the  bedside , at which point the poem is at its most intimate: just the boy, his brother and us watching from the outside. The  repetition of  hands is a nice detail helping us to see that he is quite literally passed from hand-to-hand by various adults. He is taken by his neighbour, to his father, through a roomful of relatives and strangers (who  shake his hand ) to his mother (who  held my hand ). Finally, he visits the bedside where he is alone. The structure of this journey is like a mini ‘rites of passage’ story, taking a child from a safe, protected world and exposing him to the truth and danger of the adult world.   

Suggested Poems for Comparison

• Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney

If you liked Mid-Term Break , you’ll love Death of a Naturalist . The title poem from his 1966 collection (from which Mid-Term Break is taken), the poem’s speaker – Heaney as a child – witnesses an invasion of angry frogs who he describes as ‘the great slime kings.’

• Hide and Seek by Vernon Scannell

If you’ve ever played this childhood game, you might recognise what happens to the small boy in this poem – abandoned in the dark by those he thought were his friends. It’s a little taste of how things really work out in the real world, represented by the eerie way the empty garden seems to look back at him at the end of the poem.

• Little Red Cap by Carol Ann Duffy

It’s not only boys who go on rites of passage adventures. In this reworking of the classic fairytale ( Little Red Riding Hood ), Duffy imagines herself as the titular heroine, a person with whom it is not wise to mess!

Additional Resources

If you are teaching or studying  Mid-Term Break  at school or college, or if you simply enjoyed this analysis of the poem and would like to discover more, you might like to purchase our bespoke study bundle for this poem. It’s only £2 and includes: 

• 4 pages of activities that can be printed and folded into a booklet for use in class, at home, for self-study or revision.
• Study Questions with guidance for how to answer in full paragraphs.
• A sample Point, Evidence, Explanation paragraph for essay writing. 
• An interactive and editable powerpoint, giving line-by-line analysis of all the poetic and technical features of the poem. 
• An in-depth worksheet with a focus on   explaining stanzaic form .
• A fun crossword-quiz, perfect for a recap lesson or for revision.
• 4 practice Essay Questions – and one complete model Essay Plan.

And… discuss! 

What did you think of Seamus Heaney’s poem? Have you read any of his other works that you could recommend to people who enjoyed Mid-Term Break? How did you feel at the end of this poem – was the revelation a shock to you? Why not leave a comment, start a discussion or share your ideas in the comment section below. And, for daily nuggets of analysis and all-new illustrations, don’t forget to find and follow Poetry Prof on Instagram.

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"Mid-Term Break": A Poetic Reflection on Loss and Grief

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A novelist, poet and lecturer at Akwa Ibom State University. He has a PhD in African literature from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria.

An Analysis of Seamus Heaney’s ‘Mid-term Break’

‘Miditerm Break’ is a deeply melancholic poem written by the Irish poet, Seamus Heaney, as a way of coping with the grief and pain associated with losing a loved one. Thus, ‘Midterm Break’ is a personal poem. A work of art is said to be personal when it is based on the personal experiences of its author. Heaney lost his younger brother Christopher during childhood in a road accident. ‘Mid-term Break’ is a narrative poem that recreates the sad moments following this loss based on the poet’s recollection or re/memory.

‘Mid-term Break’ is organised in eight stanzas. All the stanzas except the final one are rendered in tercets. The final stanza is just one line. A one-line stanza is called monostich. The poem is written in run-on-line or enjambment. It is also written in free verse. The first stanza goes thus: ‘I sat all morning in the college sick bay/Counting bells knelling classes to a close./At two o’clock our neighbours drove me home.’

 In the poem, the persona recounts finding himself in the sick bay of his school. It is obvious that the narrator is the poet himself. He must have learnt of the sad news and fallen sick with grief, hence his being taken to the sick bay. It might also be a practical routine to relieve him of school work and set him apart from the rest of the students for care and attention. The second line of the first stanza contains alliteration with the repetition of the voiceless velar plosive in ‘counting’, ‘classes’ and ‘close’. The word ‘knelling’ has an onomatopoeic texture and constitutes a pun as well. The bells do not only announce the end of classes in the school, it, by metaphoric extension, also announces the end of a life; in this case, the life of young Christopher. The stanza ends with the neighbours coming to collect the persona. This is one of the instances of abnormality in the poem. It should have been the parents coming for the boy.

In the second stanza, the persona has got home and seen the father crying. The assertion that the father has always taken funeral at his strides is ironic when paired with the first expression which depicts the man in tears. This contrast serves to highlight how painful this particular loss is to the man, so that he cannot help but cry. No wonder another character in the poem by name Big Jim Evans refers to the loss as ‘a hard blow’, an expression that constitutes metaphor in the poem.

The third stanza reads: ‘The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram/When I came in, and I was embarrassed/By old men standing up to shake my hand’. The first line of this stanza is a loose sentence and the entire stanza is presented in paratactic style. The description of the baby’s innocence deepens the mood of tragedy in the poem. The word ‘cooed’ is onomatopoeic as it describes the sound made by a baby. Together with ‘laugh’, it constitutes auditory imagery which is very rich in the poem, as can be seen in words like ‘crying’ and ‘knelling’ in the first stanza. The word ‘rocked’ is a movement word and constitutes kinesthetic imagery, as well as ‘standing’ and ‘shake’. The act of old men standing up to greet the young persona is used to suggest the abnormality of the situation at hand. It is not an every-other-day situation. It is not normal for old people to courtesy a young person; neither is it normal for a boy to die while old people mourn him. It should be the other way round.

The fourth stanza of the poem continues from the third and recounts how the elderly mourners attempt to console the poor young persona. The occasion also provides an avenue for the family information or history/gossip to be passed round by the mourners: ‘Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest/Away at school’. This is an example of personification as ‘Whispers’ is imbued with a human attribute. The mother holding the persona’s hand denotes an attempt at either consoling him or comforting herself that she still has a child left in the world, or both.

The fifth stanza is equally a continuation from the fourth stanza. It presents a paradoxical situation as it indicates that the mother’s reaction to the loss is that of anger, tearlessness and sighs compared to the outright crying earlier reported about the father. The words ‘coughed’ and ‘sighs’ exemplify auditory imagery in the poem. The stanza uses visual imagery in reporting the arrival of the ambulance, which is a symbol of death and tragedy in the poem. The presence of words like ‘ambulance’, ‘corpse’, ‘stanched’, ‘bandaged’ and ‘nurses’ constitutes visual imagery which are drawn from medical or hospital register. The arrival of the corpse authenticates the story that the poem narrates. It is like the presentation of evidence to prove one’s account of an event. The word ‘stanched’, in the poem’s context, denotes the use of cotton to stop the flow of blood or the insertion of cotton in the nostrils of a corpse.

In the sixth stanza, the persona recounts going upstairs to the room where the remains of the younger brother are laid. The expression ‘Snowdrops/And candles soothed the bedside’ is an example of personification. ‘Snowdrops’ is a type of flower; in this case, it is a symbol of grief and mourning, as well as a celebration of the dead. It is used to pay tribute to the departed. The same interpretation goes for the candles. The persona states: ‘I saw him/For the first time in six weeks. Paler now’. The third person pronoun ‘him’ as used in the expression refers to the deceased. By this statement, it is clear that the brother has been away at school for six weeks during which time he was apart from his brother. Conventionally, midterm break takes place within the sixth and the seventh week of the term. It would appear that his has come a week too soon. It could also be that that the persona is going to use his midterm break to mourn his brother. The title of the poem could also refer to the temporality that signals the demise of the poet’s beloved brother. The idea of midterm break might suggest an abrupt interruption of the persona’s studies to mourn his deceased brother. The expression ‘Paler now’ is a sad euphemism because it describes the deceased’s complexion. Pale is the complexion of death and the dead.

The penultimate stanza is a continuation from the sixth stanza. It continues the description of the corpse. The expression ‘poppy bruise’ is another euphemism which describes the wound incurred by the late brother when the accident occurred. The word ‘poppy’ is an adjective and constitutes a visual imagery in the poem. The expression in the second line, ‘He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot’, is another tragic euphemism, as the phrase ‘four-foot box’ refers to a child’s coffin, which is compared to a cot, a child’s sleeping space. Thus, death is compared to the act of sleeping in this poem. The simile should not be lost on any reader of the poem. The last line of the stanza also uses euphemism to represent the brutal way the brother died: ‘No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear’. ‘The bumper’ is an instance of synecdoche as it represents the car that hit the deceased. The final monostich presents the numeric significance of the deceased’s coffin: ‘A four-foot box, a foot for every year’. Christopher was only four years old when he died. ‘Mid-term Break’ can thus be read as an elegy or a threnody.

Seamus Heaney won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1995. He was born in 1939, the year World War II started. He died in 2013.

How does Seamus Heaney represent death and grief in ‘Mid-term Break’?

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Critical Analysis of Seamus Heaney Mid-Term Break

“Mid-Term Break” by Seamus Heaney is a deeply moving poem that delves into the theme of loss and the grieving process. Through vivid and evocative imagery, Heaney captures the raw emotions experienced by a young boy who returns home for a family funeral. The poem explores the contrast between the ordinary routines of life and the sudden disruption caused by death. It highlights the impact of loss on both individuals and the community, as well as the struggle to come to terms with the reality of death. Overall, “Mid-Term Break” is a powerful and thought-provoking poem that invites readers to reflect on the universal experience of grief.

“Mid-Term Break” by Seamus Heaney evokes both innocence and experience. The poem portrays the innocence of the young boy as he navigates the unfamiliar territory of death and loss. It also explores the experience of grief and the harsh realities of mortality. Through the juxtaposition of the boy’s innocence and the somber atmosphere of the funeral, Heaney captures the complex emotions and the loss of innocence that can occur in the face of tragedy. In “Mid-Term Break,” the child’s happiness and lack of awareness symbolize innocence, while the adults’ grief and mourning represent experience. The contrast between the child’s carefree nature and the somber atmosphere of death highlights the stark difference between the innocence of youth and the harsh realities of loss that adults have to face. This juxtaposition adds depth to the poem and explores the themes of innocence and experience in the face of death.

In “Mid-Term Break,” Seamus Heaney incorporates autobiographical elements to convey the personal nature of the poem. For instance, Heaney himself experienced the loss of his younger brother, Christopher, which mirrors the theme of death and grief in the poem. The use of specific details, such as the reference to the “poppy bruise” on the boy’s temple, suggests a personal connection and adds authenticity to the poem. These autobiographical elements enhance the emotional impact of the poem and make it more relatable to the reader.

The theme of grief and loss is prominent in “Mid-Term Break.” The poem depicts the speaker’s personal experience of losing a loved one, which is evident in lines such as “I met my father crying” and “Neighbors, standing around, / As if they were waiting for news of a shipwreck.” These examples convey the profound sadness and collective mourning that accompany the loss of a family member. Additionally, the poem explores the impact of grief on the speaker’s emotional state, as seen in the final lines: “A four-foot box, a foot for every year.” These examples highlight the theme of grief and loss, capturing the raw emotions and the lasting impact it has on individuals and their communities.

“Mid-Term Break” utilizes various literary techniques to enhance its impact. The poem employs vivid imagery, such as the “poppy bruise” on the boy’s temple, to create a visual representation of the speaker’s experience. It also utilizes enjambment, where lines flow into each other without punctuation, to create a sense of continuity and fluidity. Additionally, the poem employs repetition, as seen in the repeated mention of the boy’s age, to emphasize the young age of the deceased and the tragedy of the loss. These literary techniques enhance the emotional depth of the poem and contribute to its overall effectiveness.

In “Mid-Term Break,” Seamus Heaney also employs the literary techniques of assonance and caesura. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds within words or phrases, creating a musical quality. Heaney uses assonance in lines such as “I sat all morning in the college sick bay” where the “a” sound is repeated. Caesura, on the other hand, is a pause or break in the middle of a line of poetry. Heaney employs caesura to create a sense of rhythm and to emphasize certain words or phrases. These techniques add depth and musicality to the poem, enhancing the overall reading experience.

“Mid-Term Break” can be considered a dramatic monologue as it presents the speaker’s personal thoughts and emotions in response to a specific event, which in this case is the death of a family member. The poem allows the reader to delve into the speaker’s inner thoughts and feelings, providing a glimpse into their perspective and experiences. This form of storytelling adds depth and intimacy to the poem, making it a powerful example of a dramatic monologue.

Furthermore, “Mid-Term Break” carries an elegiac tone, which is characterized by a sense of mourning and reflection. The poem evokes this tone through lines such as “I saw him / For the first time in six weeks” and “Snowdrops / And candles soothed the bedside.” These examples convey a somber atmosphere and a contemplation of loss. The elegiac tone permeates the poem, creating a sense of sorrow and nostalgia that resonates with the reader.

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Mid-Term Break

I sat all morning in the college sick bay Counting bells knelling classes to a close. At two o’clock our neighbours drove me home,

In the porch I met my father crying— He had always taken funerals in his stride— And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram When I came in, and I was embarrassed By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were ‘sorry for my trouble’; Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs. At ten o’clock the ambulance arrived With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops¹ And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple, He lay in the four foot box as in his cot. No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

¹  snowdrop : a kind of flower that blooms in early spring

Questions for Discussion and Writing

1. Describe the structure of the poem—its meter , rhyme scheme , and layout. How do Heaney’s structural choices influence the overall effect of the poem?

2. What event precipitated the scenes described in the poem? What clues in the poem build up to this revelation? What is the effect of this narrative structure?

3. How is the title ironic , and how does this irony relate to the overall tone and style of the poem? Discuss how other details of the poem contribute to this tone and style. (Some examples to consider: the double meaning of “hard blow” in line 6, the baby’s cooing and laughing, and the speaker’s descriptions of his own mental state.)

4. What does the “poppy bruise” (line 19) indicate (literally and figuratively), and why are there “no gaudy scars” (line 21)? What is the effect of the repetition of “four foot box” in lines 20 and 22 and the detail “a foot for every year” (line 22)?

From Wikipedia : “Poppies have long been used as a symbol of sleep, peace, and death: Sleep because the opium extracted from them is a sedative, and death because of the common blood-red color of the red poppy in particular. In Greek and Roman myths, poppies were used as offerings to the dead.”

5. Discuss Heaney’s use of symbolism in the poem. Cite specific examples and analyze their rhetorical effect.

Related Resources

“Mid-Term Break”: Poem and Discussion Questions (PDF)

“Mid-Term Break” read by Seamus Heaney (YouTube)

The Poetry Foundation: Seamus Heaney (Biography, selected poems, related content)

Seamus Heaney on His Life and Work (NPR interview with audio and transcript)

Opened Ground: Selected Poems, 1966-1996 Amazon | Parnassus | Powell’s

PDF version

Questions © 2018 and 2019 C. Brantley Collins, Jr.

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Poem Analysis: Mid-term Break

        Seamus Heaney himself is the narrator in the poem, Mid-term Break, a sad story from his childhood. It depicts the reactions of everyone around him and of himself to a death in the family. It does this through the poem’s three parts: the waiting at school, the behaviour of everyone at home, and his solitary viewing of the body.  This poem is unsentimental but full of emotions.

The first stanza introduces Seamus sitting alone at school, in the “sick bay”.  He is waiting, and time passes slowly as he counts “bells knelling classes to a close”.  This tells the reader that the mid-term break is not a school holiday, as classes are still taking place.  The boy is eventually picked up by his neighbours, which shows the reader that his parents are too busy to pick up their son, so it must be an important occasion.  The next stanza starts with Seamus arriving home, and in the porch meeting his father, who is crying.  This stanza tells us that we are witnessing a funeral. The reader still does not know who has died, but we know that it is a family member, perhaps a sibling or even the boy’s mother.  In the third stanza, the baby “cooed and laughed”; this shows the baby’s innocence and lack of awareness of what is happening.  At this point the only emotion that the narrator expresses is embarrassment by the way older men are treating him; like an adult.  The fourth stanza describes the way the guests at the funeral react to the boy.  He is conscious of the way he is being observed and talked about; this reinforces the idea of the boy having to grow up for this event.  The last line in the stanza introduces the boy’s mother; so another family member is eliminated from the mystery of who has died.  The next stanza begins with his mother expressing her emotion: “angry tearless sighs”, a contrast to both the boy’s stated emotion and his father’s reaction.  In this stanza, the ambulance arrives, and the “corpse” is taken into the house.  The sixth and seventh stanzas depict the next morning and the boy visiting the room where the body is laid.  Everything he observes is understated, and we find out that the funeral was that of someone who had been hit by a car and killed.  In the last stanza we learn that it was a young child who has died, and come to realise that it was in fact Heaney’s brother.  This makes the stanza brutal, hard, shocking and unforgettable, as a child has lost his life before it has truly begun.  The words are nearly all emphasised, so the reader must take in the line’s message and the shock and deep grief that the family must have felt.  The shock for the reader is that as we find out who died, we also find out that the boy was a mere four years old.

This is a preview of the whole essay

        There are eight stanzas in the poem. The first seven consist of three lines, and the last comprises only one.  The rhyming in the poem is not strict: for example “close” and “home” both have the ‘o’ sound but are not total rhymes, and “crying” and “stride” both have the “i” sound. This very loose rhyming scheme is present throughout most of the poem and creates the impression of story telling. The exception to this is the last two lines, which form a rhyming couplet to make an impact: “no gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear. /A four foot box, a foot for every year”.  The poem contains eight sentences, which run through the lines and the stanzas, making the poem less like a poem and more like a story.  The sentences are a mixture of lengths, which makes some of them very simple, for example “Next morning I went up to the room.” Others, in particular the sentence which starts with the third stanza and runs through into the fifth, are very descriptive and show that he is taking everything in at once.

        The mood in the poem is sombre and sad. The tone of the poem is one of sorrow, grief, hurt and distress. The father is crying, the mother is so distraught she cannot cry. Heaney does not state his own emotions, but it is clear that he is hurting and however much he hides it, the reader can sense it through the poem’s tone.

        The language in the poem is vernacular or every-day, simple, sparse and clear.  This almost “un-poetic” language reduces the poem to its bare essentials and this makes the impact of the awful event stronger and more effective.  Just as the body has no “gaudy scars” the poem has no flowery, overblown descriptions.  Onomatopoeia, such as “cooed” and “whispers” are used to reinforce the quietness of the poem and of death.  Others, such as “coughed” and “knocked” break the silence and show the horror of what has happened.  When the body first arrives, Heaney distances himself from it by calling it a “corpse”; he is reluctant to admit that it is a person. However, as soon as he sees the body, he admits to himself that his sibling is dead, and uses personal pronouns such as “him”, “his” and “he”.  The title of the poem can have lots of meanings. At first the reader might think of a holiday, the normal meaning of a mid-term break, but after reading the poem, we know that this was not the case.  Instead, the title can be associated with the boy who has died; mid-term, as in mid-life, in other words the untimely and unexpected death.  Another meaning can be that the family has been broken in the middle of every-day life.  The reader himself can decide which of these Heaney meant the title to be.  The alliteration in the poem brings out sounds to aid the images.  The hard ‘c’ sounds at the start and the end, “ C ounting bells knelling c lasses to a c lose” and “kno ck ed him c lear”. The harsh sound is suggestive of his way of dealing with grief, letting his locked up emotions come out in his words.  Those hard sounds contrast with the soft “s” sounds in the seventh stanza: “ S nowdrops and candles s oothed the bed s ide”. These soft sounds show that Heaney is literally soothed by the candles and flowers.  There are very strong images in the poem, the first of which is in the second line: “bells knelling” are associated with death and “to a close” also suggests the finality of death.  One of the more striking images is the image of the “snowdrops and candles”. Snowdrops are white and pure, which suggests innocence.  Snowdrops grow up through frost and they represent a symbol of new life after death.  The candles have a symbol of remembrance, and give a hint of religious significance.  There is one main metaphor in the poem: the dead child is “wearing a poppy bruise”. The idea that he is wearing the bruise gives the idea that it can almost be wiped off, or that it is not really part of the boy.  This shows the reluctance of Heaney to admit that his younger brother is dead. This is echoed in the simile of “He lay in the four foot box as in a cot”; he would rather that his little brother is sleeping, not dead.

        In twenty-two lines of simple language, almost prose; Seamus Heaney has created a striking and shocking picture of the tragic death of a child.  The poem is deceptive in its simplicity because it is full of imagery and has a deep impact.  Without allowing himself any sentimentality, Heaney leaves us with a deep impression of the effect of the boy’s death on the whole family.  The last line in the poem, “A four foot box, a foot for every year”, is one that is very famous.  This is because it stays with the reader long after they have read the poem.

Document Details

• Word Count 1349
• Page Count 3
• Subject English

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Mid-Term Break

by Seamus Heaney

Mid-term break poem text.

I sat all morning in the college sick bay

Counting bells knelling classes to a close.

At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying—

He had always taken funerals in his stride—

And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram

When I came in, and I was embarrassed

By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'.

Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,

Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.

At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived

With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops

And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him

For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,

He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.

No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four-foot box, a foot for every year.

- Seamus Heaney

Mid-Term Break Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Mid-Term Break is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Contrast the readers reaction of the two parents

Are you referring to the book Mid-Term Break?

Why was the boy embarrassed?

From the text:

I was embarrassed because the old men who'd come over to the house kept standing up to shake my hand.

What does the child learn in the poem?

I think the child learns a few things. He discovers the impermanence of life: his young brother tragically killed by a car. He also discovers how mourning is handled in different ways. Heaney’s poem is a portrait of the reality that there is no “...

Study Guide for Mid-Term Break

Mid-Term Break study guide contains a biography of Seamus Heaney, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Mid-Term Break
• Mid-Term Break Summary
• Character List