Introduction
Death is notably one of the universal fears that translates to almost every culture, time, and age. All people eventually face death in their lifetime: either their own or their loved ones. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that dying is a widely researched topic in many literary works. In particular, “Midterm Break” is a poem written by Seamus Heaney that tells a story of how one day he had to come home from college to attend the funeral of his younger brother. As it becomes apparent from the finale, the innocent sibling is killed by a speeding car. Although the incident is a tragedy for the whole family, each member experiences the loss differently. The author explores the theme of dealing with death in the bibliographical narrative of the passing of a loved one and relives the experience by repressing it by indifference and irony.
Main body
First, Heaney describes how the main character attempts to cope with the stress of a relative’s death through irony. Up until the last stanza, the author approaches the tragedy without particularly naming it to avoid the shock of realization of what exactly happened. The name of the poem itself implies the irony behind the character’s reaction. Instead of addressing the incident directly, Heaney names it “Midterm Break.” This name defines the cause for his “vacation” as seemingly unimportant, which discovers the actual reason shocking for readers. Furthermore, the irony reaches its pinnacle in the concluding line of the poem, “A four-foot box, a foot for every year” (Heaney 22). In seeing a correlation between the age of the passed away sibling and the size of his coffin, the author considers an undeniable connection as the ultimate joke of death.
Eventually, however, the speaker perceives the irony of the situation while reflecting on the central conflict of the poem, finally accepting the grief. Literal criticism of “Midterm break” by Marks provides an insight into how “the speaker sees that the box’s length and the boy’s age in years are identical, and he reads this fact as an irony of circumstance” (23). Although irony attempts to devalue the grieving experience, Heaney shows how it can also be one of the only tools to cope with loss and accept it.
Second, through the constant use of mathematical language, the author emphasizes how the escape from the traumatic experience of witnessing death can be found in indifference and logic. The character is devastated by the loss and tries to get distracted by facts that surround him. For example, the speaker tries to find support in his constant referencing of time: “At two o’clock,” “at ten o’clock,” “first time in six weeks” (Heaney 3, 14, 18). Finding comfort in the present time and linear narrative, the speaker denies to acknowledge what happened to his brother in the past. Marks notes that “the first five tercets have a flat, literal, even numerical quality, with the speaker literally “Counting” (bells) at boarding school” (22). The author portrays how the character attempts to relate to the detached facts in a desperate attempt to hide the dormant grief. Heaney also might imply that when the death is processed through numbers and hard reality, it is easier to find acceptance and closure.
Conclusion
In conclusion, “Midterm Break” by Seamus Heaney examines how people face and deal with the loss of a family member through denial and coping mechanisms like irony and indifference. The irony, though often inappropriate when discussing death, can be a tool to reflect and live through the traumatic experience. Similar to how the main character describes the events with irony, his indifference, shown through numerical language and linear narrative, attempts to distance the speaker from the tragedy. Seamus Heaney shows that people deal with loss differently, some through open grief, some through detachment.
References
Heaney, Seamus. “Mid-Term Break.” Opened Ground: Selected Poems, edited by Seamus Heaney, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998, p. 518.
Marks, Gregory. “‘No Gaudy Scars’: Seamus Heaney’s Midterm Break and the Speaker-Poet’s Discovery of Irony.” The Explicator, vol. 78, no. 1, 2019, pp. 21–24. Web.