"Follower" Commentary

In the "Follower" Seamus Heaney uses imagery and structure to create a narrative, and reminicent tone. Heaney walks through images of his childhood and memories of his father working on the farm in this poem. In using imagery, he choses words to make the reader feel as though they are really there, making them feel closer to the stories he is telling, which helps to create the narrative reminicent tone. Structure also happens to be a very important part of the development of the tone in the poem. The specific punctuation and style of sentence and rhyme help Heaney also create this narrative tone.
Heaney uses specific words to create the imagery within the poem. In the first few stanzas he states, "shoulders globed", "strained", "sweating", "eye narrowed and angled", and "stumbled". All of these words create an idea of hard work, as though the reader is there on the farm with the speaker and his father. They give detail and strength to the foundation of the poem. One of the most important parts of good stories happen to be detail and a way of making the listener, or in this case the reader, feel as though they are there. In using this imagery Heaney does this, and gives the poem a narrative tone.
Structure is the second way Heaney is able to display a narrative and reminicent tone. He uses punctuation to create a very unique sense of structure. He uses a combination of long and short sentences and phrases as though he is adding more information and memories as they come to him. This helps to create a highly narrative tone in that this is what people do as they tell stories of events in their lives.
In the "Follower" Seamus Heaney uses imagery and structure to create a narrative, and reminicent tone. The combination of these two help to make the reader feel as though they are really there in the story the speaker is telling. Without the help of the unique structure and imagery Heaney uses, the poem would lose a great deal of what makes it interesting and unique to Heaney in style.