Follower

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Follower by Seamus Heaney
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• Subject Themes
• Heaney as a child following his father literally
• and metaphorically.
• Sons tribute to his father based on admiration.
• Awareness that he gets in the way but eager to be
  in
• the fields as his father goes about his work.
• Themes of father/son relationships, frustration,
• role reversal, old age and change.

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• Tone Mood
• Reflective, remembering childhood and observing
• the changes that have taken place.
• Final stanza clear aggravation at father
• hypocritical?

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• Quotes to Underline Explain
• his shoulders globed like a full sail strung
• mapping the furrow exactly
• I stumbled in his hobnailed wake
• sometimes he rode me on his back
• I was a nuisance, tripping, falling
• It is my father who keeps stumbling

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• Viewpoint
• 1st person narration autobiographical
• based on lived experience of poet.
• Heaney reflecting on how their
• relationship has changed over time.

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Language Imagery an expert admiration.
Animals obey his effortless instructions
(single pluck, clicking tongue) Eager to
follow in fathers footsteps I wanted to grow
up and plough Stanzas laid out like furrows in
a field.
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Language Imagery

• Nautical imagery.
• Lexis specific to farming.
• Will not go away frustrated tone, angry at
  father.