Follower

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

See also Follower (dance)

Follower is the title of a poem by Seamus Heaney, about how he admired and followed his father.

In this poem, Heaney reflects/looks back almost nostalgically at Irish farming through a description of his fathers' ploughing expertise. He vividly describes his memories of his fathers' abilities and explains to his readers his total, uncompromising admiration for his father as the young boy he used to be. The rhyming scheme is as skillful as the action it describes and a further note on structure would be the development from admiration to irritation: "Behind me and won't go away". Heaney constantly labels himself as a burden to his father, the young boy trailing in the fathers' "hob-nailed wake". A "nuisance" but more importantly, below this I can see simply a need far talk/chat/bonding with his father, to be noticed and appreciated but receiving far less than mutual attention.
On studying, I noticed the poignant theme or general significance was extended in "Follower". The tables are turned and the reader is astounded in the very last words of the poem. Heaney finishes the poem - to understate - on a note of irony. At the end of the poem, Heaney, who is now an adult, is now ahead of his father, a natural cycle that happens to every relationship with ones' parents. claiming his father to be a burden upon him.
Interpretation may be open to the fact that Heaney's father may not be alive at the end of the poem. It could be interpreted as his fathers memory following him around, possibly because of guilt from Heaney because he chose not to become a farmer like his father.