Mid Term Break Analysis

How is the theme of loss portrayed in ‘Romeo and Juliet’, ‘Mid Term Break’ and ‘On My First Son’?
‘Mid Term Break’ is a poem written by Seamus Heaney as an adult. It is about him looking back on the loss of his younger brother so is written retrospectively. The poem does not rhyme, this is because Heaney just sat down and wrote it in one go, and this is effective because it makes it more natural as it is just an outpouring of his grief and tells more of a story. The title of the poem suggests a half term in school when really it is in the middle of term and it had been broken up by this disaster at home.
‘I sat all morning in the college sick bay’ is the first line of the poem, I think this is very effective because it already suggests that something is not right. It gives the idea of isolation, and because he was sat there all morning, it tells us that he was waiting a long time which gave him time to overthink things and wonder why he was there and why he was being took home unexpectedly. Another effective line of the poem is ‘Counting bells knelling classes to a close’, knelling is onomatopoeia as it is the sound of funeral bells and also has connotations of death, so as Heaney looked back he remembers bells knelling …show more content…
‘And I was embarrassed by old men shaking my hand’ , Heaney felt embarrassed because he is all of a sudden being treated like and adult and being greeted by these men he did not know. These men also told Heaney that they were ‘sorry for my trouble’, this is a euphemism, and is effective because it is a much softer and nicer way to say it without including words of death. ‘Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest, away at school’, this tells us that Heaney went to a boarding school and would not have seen his little brother in a long time which would of made the poet feel guilty about not seeing his