"Follower"

Seamus Heaney, in his poem "Follower," is able to depict the relationship between a father and child, and how each is perceived as time goes on, through his use of diction and imagery. This poem deals with two time periods; five out of the six stanzas talk about when the speaker was a child, and the last talks about when the speaker is grown up. Overall, this poem is about the speaker's father, and in these first five stanzas, Heaney conveys a sense of wonder and awe that come from the speaker as a child. He believed his father to be perfect, flawless. He was "an expert" and could "map the furrow exactly." His father could make no mistakes, and was not only strong but was even a greater man for being able to put up with the speaker as a child, constantly tripping and stumbling behind him, constantly talking. As a child, the speaker looked to his father in a superhero sense, that he was not a real man, but a wonder set to always be as he was. This perception changes however, as the speaker grows up. The speaker's view of his father as a child is broken, and a sense of reality and the switching of roles is seen in the last stanza. The speaker has taken his fathers place, and the father, who used to be untouchable, has been reduced to a child, a nuisance. The relationship between the two is there, however earlier in the poem, the where the father allowed the speaker to follow him, the readers were lead to believe that it was not from annoyance, but from love, or at least indifference. Now in the last stanza, the speaker's annoyance at his father is clear, however we find that he may allow his father to keep following more out of a sense of duty, or repayment than actual want.