Mid-Term Break

BY SEAMUS HEANEY
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,

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.

TITLE:
Mid-Term Break is an ambiguous title: The reader is unsure at first just what might unfold, after
all, the title suggests that this might be a poem about a holiday, a chance to get away from school
work and relax. Instead he does not see his family in joyous circumstances, but to attend the wake
and funeral of his dead brother.

SPEAKER:
As the poem is biographical the poet Heaney is the speaker sharing first hand observation of grief
following the death of his young brother.

Rhythm, Rhyme & Form:

 

Iambic Pentameter
“The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in…”

The quick pace of these lines make the poem seem more light-hearted for a moment as the boy
sees his baby sister in the pram. But when the poem returns to the room of mourners the lines
again become slow and heavy. The enjambment that runs from stanza 3 to 4 and 4 to 5 binds the
stanzas and suggests Heaney’s overwhelming emotions.

In stanza 5 there are instances of half rhyme (sigh/arrived) (corpse/nurses) however it is in the
final two lines of this stanza that the poet uses the only full rhyme found in the poem. This helps
bring closure to the poem and gives the ending a sense of finality, emphasising the theme of
death:
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.
A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Note the use of dashes, enjambment and other punctuation to slow and pause proceedings, or to
let them flow carrying us on to the next stanza and that final devastating line. The poem is written
in a formal conversational fashion.

Tone:
 Sombre: Expressed through language
'My poems almost always start in some kind of memory...' Seamus Heaney said, he was only 14
years old when the accident happened but the poem captures the family funeral atmosphere in a
subtle and sensitive manner. The sombre mood of ‘Mid-Term Break’ is established in the opening
lines as the boy sits in the college sick bay with nothing to do but count the bells “knelling classes
to a close”.
‘Mid –Term Break’ is about death and naturally the mood throughout the poem is sombre. The
shocked sense of sadness is lifted for a moment in the third stanza when the boy sees his sister in
her cot.
As well as this central feeling of loss and sadness in the poem, there is also an interesting
secondary mood. The boy feels awkward and uncomfortable at being expected to behave like the
“eldest” in the family His brother’s death, as well as being a great tragedy, is a rite of passage for
the boy.
The shock, sadness and confusion of the earlier stanzas give way to an almost peaceful, calm
feeling: “snowdrops/ And candles” by the bed soothe the boy. And finally, there is also a great
tenderness and intimacy as he looks at his dead brother for the last time lying in his coffin.

Summary:
A boy sits in the school’s medical area waiting to be given a lift home – the ringing of the school
bell further enhance the fact that he is waiting for something. When he finally arrives home he
sees his father on the porch, crying. The house is packed with neighbours and strangers who offer
their condolences. He notices his baby sister in a cot laughing and cooing while his mother takes
his hand – she is so overcome with anger and grief that she is unable to cry. Later, the body of his
younger brother arrives in an ambulance. The next morning, when the house is quiet, the boy
goes up to the bedroom to see his brother for the last time.

Themes: Death, Frailty of Life, Growing up

= Life is brief and death comes without warning, also taking the young.
Confronting death forces one to grow up
‘Mid-Term Break’ is a first-person account of the experience of facing death for the first time
seeing how it affects those he loves. The boy has been forced to grow up by what has happened,
since he does not shed tears like his father, or appear severely grief-stricken like his mother, he
emerges as the strongest character in his family.

Imagery: Death, Grief

There is a death in the family. In the family home where he meets his grieving parents, family
friends and neighbours, who have gathered for the wake. The final scene takes place the following
morning when the boy sees his little brother’s body laid out surrounded by flowers and candles.

In the last two stanzas the boy goes to the room where his brother’s body is laid out. This is the
encounter that the entire poem has been moving towards, the climax of the whole piece. There is
an almost peaceful feeling in the poet’s description of the room: “snowdrops and candles” soothe
the bedside scene. His brother is paler than he remembers, and the only sign of his fatal injury is
the “poppy bruise” on his left temple. The young boy sees his brother for the last time and faces
death for the first.
In the final image the poet compares the small size of his brother’s coffin with the shortness of life:

Poetic Techniques: Onomatopoeia,

Alliteration, Assonance, Simile, Metaphor:

  Assonance is used throughout, helping to tie things together -

close/drove/home/blow/old...o'clock/rocked/coughed/box/knocked
 The second line is interesting as it contains both alliteration and assonance, plus the
combination of the hard c and silent k suggest a confusion of sorts. Why is the speaker in
the sick bay in the first place? Knelling is a word more often associated with church funerals
(alternatives would have been tolling or peeling or ringing).

.
Analysis:
Line by line

1.”I sat all morning in the college sick bay”

Heaney is waiting in the sick bay (a room used for sick people) to go home. The reader knows he
is not ill. From the start, there is a suggestion that something isn't quite right.

2.”Counting bells knelling classes to a close.”

Notice how the poet uses the word “knelling” instead of ringing. This gives us a hint of the mood:
the bell, which is bringing classes to an end, reminds the boy of a church bell “knelling” for a
funeral mass, and perhaps is forewarning him of the death he is about to face.

3. “At two o’clock our neighbours drove me home.”

His parents either don’t have a car or they are not capable because they are to traumatised.
The inversion stresses, the time Heaney waited.

4. “In the porch I met my father crying-“

Atmosphere and tension are building His father is alone, sitting on the veranda/ entrance lobby,
away from the visitors. He is crying a tough man showing emotion is something the speaker isn't
used to.

5. “He had always taken funerals in his stride-“

The narrator now realises that this tragedy, of which he still knows nothing, touches him as well.

6.” And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.”

Jim is a family friend bringing his condolences. “Hard blow” is figurative for a sudden or severe
shock. Literally it also refers to the car hitting his brother.

7. “The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram.”

Heaney softens the mood slightly by introducing us to a baby who is the only one who does not
understand death she coos and laughs, too young to understand what has happened. This is the
only line that contrasts the rest of the sombre mood.

8. “When I came in, and I was embarrassed”

9.”By old men standing up to shake my hand

He is not used to adults treating him as an adult. It is a rite of passage ceremony. He now has to
behave like a grown-up and support his mother. In a sense this profoundly sad death in the family
is forcing him to grow up and he's finding it understandably hard.

10. “And tell me they were ‘sorry for my trouble’”

Empty condolences, death is not ‘trouble’ it is a tragedy/heartbreak.

11.” Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,”

People whisper when they are uncomfortable or don’t know what to say. The eldest son is going
through a rite of passage

12.”Away at school, as my mother held my hand

He is accepting responsibility and trying to console his heart broken mother. It's the mother who
takes on some of the grief in the form of anger as the speaker holds her hand in a room of
strangers and prepares himself for the arrival of the body – he is the only member of the family not
crying.
 13. In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.”
The mother has no tears left or is too traumatised to cry. Compare the role of father with mother in
this respect at opposite ends of the grieving spectrum.

14.”At ten o’clock the ambulance arrived”

15.”With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.”

Heaneys use of 'corpse' is clinical and a little cold, suggesting that the speaker is too upset to
mention the child's name. the mood is heightened as the boy goes alone to see his brother’s body.
Heaney’s language now is much more poetic than it was when he referred to his brother as a
corpse: note the personal pronouns “him”, “his”, “he” – as opposed to “the corpse”.

16.” Next morning I went up to the room. Snowdrops

His brother is lying in wake in his room. This is for relatives and friends before the burial. The next
day however he feels compelled to go upstairs to have one last personal meeting. The mood is
heightened as the boy goes alone to see his brother’s body

The calm mood is shown in the serene picture. Snowdrops are the first flowers to show in winter,
bursting through the cold earth, sparked by the increasing light. They are a symbol of hope and
new life.

17.”And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him

. Heaney’s language now is much more poetic than it was when he referred to his brother as a
corpse: note the personal pronouns “him”, “his”, “he” – as opposed to “the corpse”. White flowers
and candles comfort/calm the people as it symbolises purity and transience (something that
doesn’t last long) Candles are associated with prayer. The use of the word soothed reflects the
healing qualities of the peaceful room where the body lies.

18. ”For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,”

He has been at boarding school for six weeks and never saw his brother, now when he does see
him he is much paler because he is dead. The alliteration of the soothing s-sound in lines 16-18
creates an atmosphere of tranquillity and serenity.

19.”Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,”

Metaphor =A poppy is a red flower associated with death and remembrance. The temple is the
flat part of either side of the head between the forehead and the ear. There is the dead child
'wearing' a bruise, which implies it's not a part of him, a temporary thing. Poppies are linked to
peace and also are a source for opiates which ease pain.

20.”He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.”

The child appears as if sleeping, giving us a simile. The ugly “corpse, stanched and bandaged”,
becomes a sleeping child with “no gaudy scars” – dead, but, ironically, not disfigured

21.”No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.”

The car didn’t run him over, but hit the boy directly on the head there are no unsightly scars; the
boy reminds the speaker of when he was a baby in his cot so there are no scars or marks.

22. “A four foot box, a foot for every year.”

The small coffin becomes a sign of brevity, the transcience of life. The alliteration of the f-sound
creates a feeling of aggression and finality. The last line is full of pathos, the four-foot box
measuring out the life of the victim in years. Note the full rhyming couplet which seals up the
poem, reminding us of how easy it is to die, from a single blow of a car bumper, but how
challenging becomes the grieving process that must inevitably follow.

QUESTIONS:

Throughout this poem there are subtle hints towards the tragedy that is unveiled and the
innocence of the loss.

1.Complete the comparisons from the poem, look at the literal meaning and then explain what the
poet is hinting….
a) “college sick bay”
b) “bells knelling”
c) “to a close”
d) “home”
e) ”father crying”
f) “hard blow”
g) “old men standing up to shake my hand”
h) “my mother held my hand” (8)
2. Why does the poet mention the antics of the baby? (2)
3. Why is the word “corpse” used? (1)
4. What life lesson can be learnt from this poem? (2)
5. Discuss the use of the word “knelling” in line 2. (2)
6.1 How did Heaney feel when the men shook his hand? (1)
6.2 Why did he feel this way? (2)
7.1 How does the father’s reaction to funerals in general differ from his reaction in this poem? (2)
7.2 Why is his reaction so different? (1)
8 Name to associations of the poppy flower. (2)
MID-TERM BREAK MEMORANDUM
1.a) “college sick bay” = his brother spending time in hospital
b) “bells knelling” = funeral
c) “to a close” = his brother’s life coming to an end
d) “home” = his brother going ‘home’ to Heaven
e) ”father crying” = Religious- God weeping at the loss of a child
f) “hard blow” = the car hit his brother hard
g) “old men standing up to shake my hand” = there should be ‘old men’ in Heaven
not young boys, the possibility of
angels ’accepting’ his brother into Heaven
h) “my mother held my hand” = God holds our hand, He doesn’t leave our side,
He provides comfort.
2. Contrasts life with death.
3. To highlight cruel, inhumane death.
4. Open answer.
5. The bell at funerals knells so the word is associated with death and creates a sombre mood.
6.1 He was embarrassed.
6.2 He was not used to be treated like a grown-up.
7.1 His father normally takes it in his stride, it doesn’t affect him personally, now he is crying.
7.2 He is mourning the death of his own son.
8. Death and remembrance.