Poem Analysis: Mid-term Break

... Poem Analysis: Mid-term Break Seamus Heaney himself is the narrator in the poem, Mid-term Break, a sad story from his childhood. It depicts the reactions of everyone around him and of himself to a death in the family. It does this through the poem's three parts: the waiting at school, the behaviour of everyone at home, and his solitary viewing of the body. This poem is unsentimental but full of emotions. The first stanza introduces Seamus sitting alone at school, in the "sick bay". He is waiting, and time passes slowly as he counts "bells knelling classes to a close". This tells the reader that the mid-term break is not a school holiday, as classes are still taking place. The boy is eventually picked up by his neighbours, which shows the reader that his parents are too busy to pick up their son, so it must be an important occasion. The

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