Essay Example on Seamus Heaney's Clearances Series: A Tribute to His Mother

Clearances, III is the third in a series of eight sonnets by Seamus Heaney titled Clearances, in memoriam M.K.H., 1911 - 1984. They are found in the poet's collection called The Haw Lantern that was published in 1987. The series commemorate the life of the late Margaret Kathleen Heaney, the poet's mother, whose achievements are expresses in brief but vivid imagery. In Clearances, III Heaney recalls a moment at home on a Sunday morning when he peeled potatoes with his mother on the family farm.

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The first sonnet in the series opens with someone tossing a cobblestone, with Heaney noting that it appears to be aimed at him. The stone depicts his maternal great-grandmother who became despised by many people in the community when she married a Catholic despite being a Protestant. It also depicts the conflict known as The Troubles that plagued Ireland for a long time. According to Avril (12), the sonnet implies that Heaney, who earned a reputation as catholic poet in Northern Ireland, could have written poems as a Protestant were it not for his great-grandmother's conversion through marriage. In this sequence of sonnets, The Troubles seem to more personal, closer to home, and more painful.

The first eight lines of Clearances, III depict a small boy peeling potatoes with his mother on a Sunday morning while the other family members are attending a Mass service. The next four lines describe a scene whereby a priest presides over a deathbed ritual. While the others in the room weep or recite prayers for the deceased, the poet is lost in thought remembering some memories. The memories enable him experience true communion with his late mother, and depict a sacrament far more immediate and sacred than the deathbed rituals being recited by the priest. The series' fifth sonnet merges Heaney's memory of unhinging linen sheets from the air-drying line and helping his mother fold them into squares. The sheets alternately forms sails in the wind and seemingly a shroud from the poet's mother.

Heaney has always perceived poetry as a means of defining and interpreting the present by introducing into it a considerable relationship with the past. Clearances, III appears to illustrate this perception as the poet reflects on current events through the past. The part containing eight lines describes a past encounter between him and his mother, with the poem's reader hearing his voice as an adult. From Heaney's biographical information, it is evident that 'I' refers to the poet while 'hers' means his mother. The identity of the two characters whose relationship is explored in the poem is not ambiguous. It happens to be a deeply personal and rather complex relationship.

In Clearances, III, the poet reflects on two notable scenes in the life of this mother-and-son couple, which acts as a prequel to the special relationship they have. While one scene is from an unspecified past, the other is more recent. The latter encounter narrates the mother's last moments while she is on her deathbed. It reminds the son of a time in the past when the two were at the peak of their special relationship. This scene forms the basis of sonnet's last six lines, while the eight-line part elaborates the scene from the unspecified past. In this instance, sestet offers a kind of a commentary of what is mentioned in the octave (O'Brien, 107).

The octave outlines the scene from the past moment where the son and mother are together. It's quite a trivial scene considering that they are peeling potatoes in the kitchen while the other family members are attending a church service. The son, implied to be Heaney, is probably enjoying a special privilege of his mother's company. It is a known fact that the poet was the eldest in a family of nine children. The mother must have asked her favorite eldest son to remain at home and help her. It is likely that she had an ulterior motive of completely possessing and owning him. The two are so into each other's company that the only thing that jolts them back to their senses is the splashing sounds made by peels falling into a bucket of water. Clearances, III evokes an atmosphere of solitude and silence. It is likely that the household did not induce an atmosphere of happiness and acceptance for the mother and son. Also, it would not be wrong to deduce that Heaney felt his father did not look after the family well enough. The two had been left alone at home while all the others had gone to a Mass service. The mother gets a chance to have her son all to herself, and she is fully capitalizing on the opportunity.

Heaney states that the peeled potatoes were made to fall into the bucket "Like solder weeping off the soldering iron" (Ryan, 11). The act of soldiering is meant to join two or more pieces of metal together. The poet is giving subtle hints of what he had wished for but never fully got, which is the emotional union with his mother as a loving parent. He uses several appropriate words and terms to express himself, such as 'weeping', 'cold comforts,' 'gleaming,' and ' cold comforts.' The peeled potatoes are described as 'gleaming' when placed in 'clean water.' They imply the results of the mother and son's joint labor, and represent some that makes both happy. However, what they experience is 'cold comfort 'in that it is a minor consolation for the loneliness and detachment that they endure on a daily basis. The 'clean water' probably implies the pure and genuine relationship between mother and son.

Since poetry is ideal fiction, it is evident that Clearances, III commemorates Heaney's mother by depicting a shared moment between a woman and her son. The moment occurs as she is lying on her deathbed, and replaces the usual rituals for a dying person. In the course of his lengthy career, Heaney was often perceived as a poet who would do the honorable thing expected of him. However, this somewhat deceptive poem can be interpreted as the poet doing something that would not be expected of him.

Heaney's poems have always been about transgression. Right from the first line, Heaney and his mother are depicted as going against the normal routine for a Sunday morning. Rather than crying or behaving like the other family members, the poet decides to apply a different strategy. He creates his own rituals for a dying person through poetry. He occupies a different kind of consciousness at the bedside involving the body but not mind. He also mentally creates a totally different setting elsewhere, which is the bright memory space of the poem itself.

Works Cited

Avril, C. "Freedom in death: A gendered reading of Seamus Heaney's' Clearances 2, In Memoriam MKH, 1911-1984'." MODERNA SPRAK 96.1 (2002): 11-13.

O'Brien, Eugene. "'A Pure Change Happened': Seamus Heaney and the Poetry of Loss." Representations of Loss in Irish Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2018. 97-114.

Ryan, Richard. "A Private Poet in the Public World: Some Personal Memories of Seamus Heaney." Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review 104.413 (2015): 8-15.