Notes on A Constable Calls by Seamas Heaney Essay

Seamus Heaney tells us astir(predicate) a memory from his childhood. A policeman visits his family farm to take a record of the crops that Heaneys go is growing. The description of the bicycle is our first quality that the policeman is not welcomed and that he is seen -by Heaney at least as an intimidating, embarrassing figure. Everything in the description of the bike hints at this. The fat black handlegrips grave ugly and unpleasant, and seem to suggest that the bicycles owner aptitude be similarly unappealing. The dynamo is cockedback, reminding us of the trigger of a gun. The pedals are meliorate / Of the boot of the law, implying that the constable is a man whose social movement causes obligate and discomfort. He represents the law and is therefore disliked. At that time in northern Ireland, most Catholics would have viewed the police as an oppressive thrust. The descriptions of the constable honour that idea.The harsh k and g sounds in the opening stanzas emphasise the austereness of the authority the constable represents and they also create a sense of tension. It is sink that the constable is not welcome in the Heaney home. His hat is on the understructure nobody has taken it from him or offered him a place to put it. Again, the fleshly description of the constable focuses on unattractive aspects of his appearance. His hair is slightly pass and marked by the cap he has been wearing. The idea of his oppressive presence is again picked up by the reference to the ledger (record book) being sonorous. The three-year-old Heaney is filled with fear as he watches the constable. He stares at his gun and remembers every detail of it in its holster. The t atomic number 53 of the poem is one of fear. Meanwhile, the constable continues to record the familys crops. Heaneys give answers the constables questions with curt, one word replies, showing how unwelcome two he and his interrogation are.The young boy is terrified to hear his father lying ab out the crops. He knows that there is a line of turnips which his father has not admitted to, and in his horrified imagination, he sees his father and maybe thus far himself being taken to the barracks and thrown in a cell. The constable takes his leave, put the ledger away. Heaney refers to it as the domesday book because he is so terrified that his father will be judged and punished for hislittle lie about the turnips. This come upon for the ledger also reinforces the idea of the constable belonging to an oppressive force which holds the threat of violence over people like Heaneys father. Of course, the young boy is grossly exaggerating the policemans power in this instance. To a small child, the lie about the turnips seems enormous, but in reality, nobody would be thrown in jail for such a minor offence, scour if it were to be discovered. However, young Heaneys emotions towards the constable reflect his fathers dislike and resentment of being held to account for his crops.The constable looks at the young boy and says goodbye. This reminds us that the constable is, in reality, just a man. This is the only instance of his humanity. It is not likely that he wishes to appear impenetrable or intimidating, but that is how he is viewed by the Catholic community. He is seen as a representative of an unwelcome, despised, oppressive authority. Outside the window, the constable is for a here and now just a shadow. There is something shadowy about the descriptions of him throughout the poem. We never learn any details about him as a somebody what we learn of him is based on the images of menace and threat.