North and Field Work explore the political atmosphere in Northern Ireland from Heaney's Catholic background. Heaney is often placed in a no-win situation because he is condemned both for confronting the situation too intensely and for not addressing the problem (Pellegrino 4). Heaney admits this inner conflict and struggle of whether to speak out or remain neutral. He acknowledged the fact that the Christian moralist part of him wished to speak out against the IRA's campaign of bombings and killings, yet the Irish side of him was shocked by the cruelty of the British Army on occasions such as Bloody Sunday (Heaney 22-23). H

Another one of Heaney's poems that creates a dark and gloomy mood is "Funeral Rites". This particular poem is a combination of reality and mythology. In the first part of this poem, Heaney describes the dead of a culture with extremely elaborate funeral rituals. In the second and third parts of the poem, Heaney places Ireland in a great funeral procession, celebrating in as much grandeur the frequent murders of Ireland as in the ancient funeral rituals Heaney creates. These poems, as well as most of Heaney's other poems, tend to create a somber mood in the reader (Bloom 62).

Even the setting of "Punishment" has a parallel. The bog in which a majority of his poems take place symbolizes both Mother Earth and Ireland. The bog uses Ireland as the female goddess to whom all the ritual sacrifices of human lives are made. This relates directly to the conflict in Northern Ireland, where murder for the sake of Ireland is a common occurrence. The bog also represents Mother Earth. The bog in Heaney's poems manages this comparison by symbolizing an "all tombing womb". The corpses that exist within it are preserved like embryos waiting for rebirth (Bloom 64)

---. Field Work. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1979.

"Parallel." Def. 2a. The Merriam Webster Dictionary. 5th ed. 1994.

sacrifice. His fascination with the past allows him to comment on the present through these poems (Pellegrino 2).

Prentice Hall Literature. 2nd ed. Englewood: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1991.

Heaney illustrates the mood of his poems by creating a feeling within the reader with his work (Prentice1013). The overall mood of Heaney's poems seems to be one of death and demise. This is excellently expressed by a poem from North entitled "The Grauballe Man". In this poem, Heaney captures death in such a way that it creates a positive value (Bloom 16-17). "Kbut now he lies/ perfected in my memoryK hung in the scales/ with beauty and atrocity: Kwith the Dying Gaul/ too strictly compassed/ on his shield,/ with the actual weight/ of each hooded victim,/ slashed and dumped." (Heaney 36). This mood is emphasized by balancing the reality of the "hooded victim" with the art of "the Dying Gaul/ too strictly compassed/ on his shield.". In a way this phrase of the poem suggests that suffering is compensated by a successful work of art. Heaney's dignified yet morbid description of the victim both seems to pa

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1614
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)