Mid-term Break

The alienated tone of the narrator in Seamus Heaney's "Mid-term break" which creates the overall lonely mood of the poem is created through the use of tactile imagery, visual imagery, onomatopoeia and diction all of which imply the awkwardness that the speaker feels during this unexpected break.

The tactile images of hands in this poem help create the aforementioned tone because of the various emotions and social customs that are associated with these interactions. The touching of hands in our society means a personal and intimate connection between two humans because for that one second they are as close as is physically personal because their bodies are melding together. The alienation of the author is more importantly communicated through the different ways in which the speaker's hands interact with others. When shaking the hands of older men the speaker states that he is embarrassed. This statement implies that either he is not accustomed to this "manly" and formal greeting and feels uncomfortable shaking these men's hands or that maybe the entire exchange between him and these gentlemen embarrasses him because he is uncomfortable in these types of situations. Either interpretation of the speaker's feelings toward the situation establish firmly that he feels out of place and awkward at this funeral. While there is a customary shaking of hands between the speaker and the older men @ the ceremony when with his mother he is forced to hold her hand which is a more permanent and personal connection of bodies due to the fact that it lasts longer and also because its and exchange between family members. The difference between the tactile interaction with his mother and the older gentlemen also presents another field in which the speaker is at unsure and feels out of place: age. Having shaken hands with the older men to show that he too was man, holding his mother's hand is so reminiscent of the speaker's childhood that this elderly façade he previously tried to dawn simply evaporates as soon as his hands meet his mothers as they had done hundreds of times before as he was growing up.

Aside from the uneasiness that the author feels when having to participate in these physical connecting moments with people at this funeral, the tone of alienation is also depicted through the use of visual images. The constant reference of the author to time and how long he has been away from his family establishes that the speaker's separation from his family has affected the relationship with his family and all the attendants of the funeral. Whether talking about being "in the college sick bay", "away at school" or "[seeing] him for the first time in six weeks" the author communicates the strangeness of the situation because he has been away from his family for so long and in a way doesn't have the same connection with them that he used to have which could explain why he feels slightly disconnected from them and the situation because he can't quite relate because while he's been away it is as if he were in a different world.

More than any other technique the diction of the words used by Heaney connote the alienated and tone and awkwardness that the author feels. By using the words "blow" and "knocked" instead of a more delicate and gentle euphemisms suggest that the author has no reason to present this information delicately because to him they are just facts about the situation and not descriptions of his brother's death or his father's feelings. This lack of euphemisms or less graphic terminology is especially telling of the speaker's disconnect in the fifth stanza when he refers to the lifeless body of his own brother as "the corpse" and nothing more which suggests that to him this is just a random body and that he does not realize that it is his brother.

This poem through the use of powerful literary tools presents the difficult situation in which a speaker finds himself at his four year-old brother's funeral questioning the connection he has with his family and who he is.