Beginning Of The Heaney Poem example essay topic

How do the poets Heaney and Frost explore the elements of choice? The two poems 'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost and 'An Advancement of Learning' by Seamus Heaney both look at choice and show the differences between them. Both poets are trying to convey that in life, there are lots of decisions to make and our choices may influence a whole other sequence of events in out lives. At the beginning of both of the poems, the men are faced with dilemmas about which way to walk.

At the beginning of the Heaney poem, the man is faced with a choice about which route to take and one of the outcomes of this decision may result in him having to overcome his childhood fears. But at the beginning of the Frost poem, the man is faced with the choice of which road to take, both resulting in differences in his life. If we look at the first stanza of the poems, at the beginning of Heaney, he says: " I took the embankment path, (As always deferring the bridge) " Already we know that this man does not want to cross the bridge, and has never done so. Looking at this further, this could be meaning that the man does not want to take the stable path, but wants to experience the more exciting route, showing his childish nature. And from saying that he never takes the bridge, this could show his lack of enthusiasm to grow up. A bit further on we have the line: "Well away from the road now,' which may again signify his lack of enthusiasm to grow up by trying to separate himself from the normal, adult world and way of life.

He also could be trying to keep his childhood innocence by staying away from the dangers of everyday life. The way that the poet sets the scene builds us up a picture of a very calm, tranquil setting in just one sentence: "The river nosed past, Pliable, oil-skinned, wearing a transfer of gables and sky". This sentence is a very simple sentence with lots of effects. The personification of the river in 'the river nosed past' makes it seem as if it is alive, but moving very slowly with hardly any current. The compound adjective 'oil-skinned' can show one of two things: maybe a comparison to an oil painting, or maybe trying to describe a greasy film on top of the water, gleaming in the daylight. The lines 'wearing a transfer of gables and sky' again personifies the river, and again adds to the theory that the compound adjective 'oil-skinned' is referring to a painting by saying that you can see a perfect reflection in the water.

Then makes the appearance of the rat, of which the whole poem from this point is based around. In stanza three is when we first see the rat, and the man makes his disgust clear from the beginning with his use of sibilance (Something, slobbered, smudging, silence,'s limed, sickened). This gives the effect of a hissing noise, which is associated with evil. If we look at these words, we can tell that he feels disgusted because they are very graphic adjectives. After this, we know that he his opposing himself against the rat because we have three military references. "Bridgehead,"Trained,"Retreated", The effect of these three references maybe show the man and boy as enemies of a kind of battle.

This could be a metaphorical battle between the man and his reluctance to grow up. At the end of the 'battle', the man realises that the rat is not scary at all, and maybe this forces him to change his mind about the things that children fear. The last line is: "Then I walked on and crossed the bridge". This last line signifies that the choice this man has made has affected his views on life and has removed his childhood innocence. In the Frost poem he explores choice in a different way. In the first line we already know what the choice is: "Two roads diverged into a yellow wood", The fork in the road could be an extended metaphor for life and its decisions.

He goes on to say, "sorry I could not travel both", which gives us a sense of regret that this man has to make a decision. Already from the first two lines, we know that this man has a reluctance to make decisions. This poem is a dilemma of choice between two exclusive options. He then says: "I looked down as far I could, to where it bent in the overgrowth" This sentence shows us that the man is weighing up all his options, and the bend in road shows us that we cannot see the future. For the rest of the poem, the man is deliberating what path to take. After looking down one road, he looks at the other and decides that it is just as nice, but there is one small difference: "Having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear", This sentence tells us one thing that is very important to try and get the man's views on life and himself.

He is saying that this path appeals to him more because it seems to have been lee travelled by. Maybe he is trying to suggest that he is an individual and does not want to follow the crowd. The is speculation however, further on in the poem when the man starts to say things which could question whether that path really is less travelled or not: "Both that morning equally lay, in leaves no step had trodden black", Whether he feels that he is deluding himself or not, he goes for the path that he thinks had less wear: "Oh, I kept the first for another day", the final line of this poem is: "I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference". But the poem is called 'The Road Not Taken's how ing that maybe he has had doubts about choosing the path that he took and he is deluding himself because he fancies himself as an individual. These two poems show us that our choices reflect the person we think we are, and the person that we will become.

They also show us that decisions are very complex and should be made with care.