Rhetorical Analysis On Irish Funerals

We soon learn that the speaker is not physically sick, but sick with grief. Bells "Knell" to announce a death or a funeral, so the choice of wording here foreshadows the bad news to come. This is what Irish funerals are all about; the community huddling around the grieving family to support them, even if this support comes through the simple act of collecting the grieving family's child from school. The sight of his father crying - a strong man, a man whom he looks up to and who has not grieved so extremely after previous deaths - takes the speaker aback. It is poignant that the speaker's father says nothing to his son. If even funerals have never made him cry, it seems likely that this is the first time the speaker has seen him cry at all.

The speaker is the eldest child in the family, and this is going to be a 'coming-of-age' event for him. The old men are almost initiating him into adulthood by shaking his hand, something men do to mourning men at funerals in Ireland. The quotes signify a certain cynicism for the intentions of those who speak these words. Words are so easy to say and to someone who has just lost a loved one, it is nearly impossible to be consoled by an outsider; especially if words are all they have to offer. This line indicates that family and friends are present, Heaney may not know these people and people are whispering saying he is the eldest, this suggests these people may not know the poet that well either. The speaker was away when he received the call that a family member had died. He holds his mother's hand, not just for his own reassurance, but also his

The comma after 'corpse' is intended to make us stop and think; Heaney finds it hard to connect with his brother's lifeless body. He knew of the young boy full of life and energy, but this lifeless body is totally alien to him, so much so that he refers to it not as his brother, but as the 'corpse'. These two words imply the serious nature of his injuries, yet leave us to imagine them. As at the beginning of the third verse, note the calming and soothing, which is abruptly halted with "I saw him." Note also that "I saw him" finishes off the line, so that you are forced to stop on this thought, which invites us to ponder for a moment the agony of seeing your brother dead for the first time. Snowdrops are a flower that come up for a very short period of time in winter, and quickly die. He hasn't been able to see his brother in a long time - he never got to say goodbye. The person has been deceased for a length of time now. Heaney makes the point that the body is 'paler