follower

• "My father worked with a horse plough"


  Content: This narrator in this poem describes his father's expert ploughing.
• "His shoulders globed"


  Language: assonance of the long 'o' sounds emphasise the broadness of his shoulders.
• "His shoulders globes like a full sail strung"


  Nautical imagery: this simile shows that, just as sails harness the power of the wind, he harnesses the power of the horses and uses them to plough.
• "The horses strained"


  Content: the verb suggests tough, physical work.
• "clicking tongue"


  Content: onomatopoeia draws attention to his skill - he can control the powerful horses just by clicking his tongue.
• "An expert"


  Content: describing his father in this way shows that he is technically skilled as well as strong. This short, blunt sentence and its position at the start of the line make it a confident, inarguably statement.
• "set", "fit", "bright", "steeled-pointed sock"

  Content: repetition of the hard sounding letters "t", "k", in this stanza reflect the precision of his work.
• "The sod rolled over without breaking."


  Nautical imagery: rolled and breaking continue the nautical imagery of stanza 1. The sods are like rolling waves that crash against the shore - the father is so skilled that he can roll the sod smoothly without breaking it.
• "... single pluck / Of reins"


  Form: this use of enjambment imitates how this father turns the horse round to start a new furrow."
• "sweating team"


  Content: shows the physicality and hard work.
• "His eye / narrowed and angled"


  Showing a focus, astute
• "...exactly. / I stumbled"


  Structure: the stanza change emphasises the contrast between the father's skill and the clumsiness of his son - it's unlikely he'll grow up to be like his father.
• "... in his hob-nailed wake"


  Nautical imagery: the reference to a ship's wake creates an image of a choppy water - this emphasises how the sound found it difficult to follow his father.
• "Fell sometimes on the polished sod.

  Content: showing the child's clumsiness.
• "Sometimes he rode me on his back"


  Content: this paternal image shows how the narrator and his father have a good relationship - he's patient and loving with hi
• "Dipping and rising to his plod."

  Nautical imagery: he describes his father like a ship, riding the "Dipping" and "rising" waves of the furrows.
• "Dipping.. rising"


  Form: the rhythm of the poem itself seems to dip and rise - this imitates the boy's movements on his father's back.
• "I wanted to grow up and plough ... follow"


  Form: "plough" and "follow" are only half rhymes - this lack of a full rhyme emphasise how the son has not fulfilled his desire to follow in his father's footsteps.
• "All I ever did"

  Reflective imagery: he felt like a failure for not learning how to plough.
• "In his broad shadow"

  Reflective imagery: he felt like he was living in his father's shadow. He wanted to be as skilful and impressive as he was.
• "I was a nuisance, tripping, taking, yapping"

  Structure: feelings about himself. List of verbs and enjambment emphasises the narrator's clumsy persistence.
• "It is my father who keeps stumbling"


  Structure: last stanza a role reversal in - in line 13 the boy stumbled behind his father, now his father is stumbling behind his son. Time has passed.
• "Behind me, and will not go away."


  Reflective language: this emphasises how the 'Follower' in the title is now the father, not the narrator - the title refers to both of them at different times of their lives.
• "Stumbling"


  Structure: caesura makes this change to the present tense seem sudden and unexpected - this heightens the impact of the final sentence.
• Seamus Heaney


  1939-2013, born in Northern Ireland and grew up on his father's farm. 'Follower' was published in 1966 in a poetry collection which dealt with themes of childhood, identify and rural life.
• What the poem is about:1


  1. Narrator describes his father's expert ploughing. As a boy be greatly admired his father's skill.
• What the poem is about: 2

  2. The boy followed his father around the farm around the farm. Sometimes he'd stumble and fall and occasionally his father would carry him on his back.
• What the poem is about: 3

  3. He wanted to grow up to be like his father, but all he ever did was follow him around being a nuisance.
• What the poem is about: 4


  4. Now they are both older, the relationship has been reversed, and it's the father who 'follows' his son.
• Form


  Form: 6 stanzas each four lines long and is written mostly in iambic tetrametre
• Iambic tetrametre


  Metre arrangement of 8 stressed and unstressed syllables. Four stressed and four unstressed.
• Structure and rhythm


  Neat structure and rhythm mimics the action of ploughing.
• Rhyme scheme


  Regular ABAB rhyme scheme, but some are only half rhymes- this reflects how the boy falls short of being like his father.
• Structure


  First three stanzas focus on the father. The next two stanzas focus on the boy's struggle with his identity - he admired his father and wanted to be like him, but failed. Role reversal in the last stanza, rather stumbling and following his son.
• Nautical imagery


  Narrator uses language of the sea and sailing to describe his father's ploughing. This emphasises the father's strength and skill and the admiration the boy felt for him. The narrator describes his father as the sails, the captain and the ship itself- he's everything to his son.
• Reflective language


  The narrator sees himself as a "nuisance" and maybe a failure, but at the end of the poem he understands that the father he admired so much as a boy is now dependent on him.
• Feelings and attitudes: 1: Admiration


  The narrator admires his father's skill at ploughing. As a child, he hero-worshipped him and hoped to take his place one day, despite struggling to follow him.
• Feelings and attitudes: 2


  Self-criticism - the narrator worries that he's a failure because he didn't follow in his father's footsteps.
• Feelings and attitudes: 3

  Family ties - despite not following in his father's footsteps, the narrator still has a close relationship with him - he "will not go away."
• Key themes


  Family relationships, admiration, desire and longing, getting older, memory, nature,