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Compare How Family Relationships are Presented in ‘The Follower’ by Seamus Heaney and ‘Mother, Any Distance’ by Simon Armitage.In this answer, I shall be comparing how family relationships are presented in the poems, ‘The Follower’ by Seamus Heaney and ‘Mother, Any Distance’ by Simon Armitage. Both poems portray parental relationships in similar ways and reflect how relationships can change over the years. The poems themselves, differ, however, in their outcomes, with the son in ‘Mother, Any Distance’ breaking free from his mother, whereas the son in ‘The Follower’ is kept in bondage to his father who ‘will not go away’.Initially, both speakers reveal a tender love and admiration for their respective parents. To present these feelings, both poets use metaphorical language to describe their love and affection. In ‘The Follower’ poem, Heaney depicts his father as the Greek god, Atlas, ‘his shoulders globed like a full sail strung’, holding the earth on his immense shoulders, or, like a vast sailing ship with sails open, sailing on the ocean of life. So too, in ‘Mother, any distance’ the speaker loves his mother, she is his ‘second pair of hands’, his ‘anchor’ in life. Whilst the metaphor of an ‘anchor’ might be ambiguous, we can make positive connotations from the metaphor; the speaker’s mother, like an anchor, is a steady and sturdy influence on her son as he embarks on the sea of life with all its storms. The theme of parental love and admiration is also continued through the choice of poetic form. In ‘Mother, any distance’ the poet uses a loose sonnet form. The sonnet is traditionally reserved for love poetry and the speaker ‘bows’ to his love for his mother through his format choice. However, it is wise to note that the ‘looseness’ of his sonnet form, though following the octave of setting the problems in the ‘loving’ relationship with the sestet of resolution of the problems, lends an air of foreboding to the poem. Also, the sonnet form contains an unconventional rhyme scheme, highlighting that all is not be well between mother and son. The rhyme scheme, like the sonnet form, is loose too and the perfect, near, non-existent and internal rhymes whisper to the reader inflections of resentment from the son, spoiling the harmony of love. Similarly, in ‘The Follower’ Heaney uses poetic form to highlight the loving relationship between his father and himself. This poem takes the form of controlled four line stanzas; echoing the father’s perfect control of his plough and horses: a huge source of the Heaney’s hero worship of his father. However, it is once again the rhyme scheme that alerts the reader to the fact that all is not well. Heaney employs an alternate rhyme scheme, ABAB, but Heaney cleverly uses one perfect rhyming pair with one near rhyming pair. The perfect rhymes reflect the father’s perfection whereas the near perfect rhymes portray Heaney’s childish and perceived clumsiness; his never ‘measuring up’ to his father’s greatness; there is a tinge of resentment too in the reference to following in the father’s ‘broad shadow round the farm’. So, though full of love, family relationships can result in resentments too. Both poets also use poetic structure to present family relationships, this mirrors the natural bondage of a child to its parent. In ‘Mother, Any Distance’, the use of enjambment and caesura accomplishes the breaking of the motherly bond in the final stanza of the poem. We see this in the broken line, ‘…where somethinghas to give;’ This run on line is followed by a long pause which makes the tension between the son’s bid for freedom and the mother’s holding on almost unbearable for the reader. Just as the metaphorical ‘tape measure’ in the poem is about to break, the enjambment continues, ‘…your fingertips still pinchthe last one-hundredth of an inch…’ The mother is still desperately holding on, until the ellipsis... snaps, signalling the break of the bond between mother and son: freeing the son to fly towards his new life and ‘endless sky’. In ‘The Follower’ by contrast, although enjambment is used by Heaney, it informs the reader that the parental bond hasn’t been broken, an unbreakable tie remains, ‘But today/It is my father who keeps stumblingBehind me, and will not go away’. We can sense, in part, a sense of frustration from the adult Heaney that the bond hasn’t been broken: it is a family tie after all!The two poems, ‘Mother, Any Distance’ and ‘The Follower’ represent familiar love and a breaking of a bond and a non breaking of a bond respectively. I believe the historical context is at the heart of the difference. ‘Mother, Any Distance’ is a contemporary poem where, in modern society, children are taught to gain and value independence away from their parents at an early age. This is reflected in the poem by the son moving into his own home, measuring it up to prepare for his new life. In contrast to this, Heaney grew up in the early forties in Derry, he knew the hardship and toil of Irish farming life. It was by living in a close knit family, combining three or four generations in the one family farmhouse, that families could survive the harsh winters and poverty. Also, Heaney, raised a Catholic, knew that breaking parental bonds and failing to nurture the old would be frowned. Instead, the adult Heaney settles for a tinge of resentment, a necessary price to pay towards the hero father ‘who will not go away’. ................
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