Seamus Heaney (1939-)
Strange Fruit (1975)
Here is the girl's head like an exhumed gourd.
Oval-faced, prune-skinned, prune-stones for teeth.
They unswaddled the wet fern of her hair
And made an exhibition of its coil,
Let the air at her leathery beauty.
Pash of tallow, perishable treasure:
Her broken nose is dark as a turf clod,
Her eyeholes blank as pools in the old workings.
Diodorus Siculus confessed
His gradual ease with the likes of this:
Murdered, forgotten, nameless, terrible
Beheaded girl, outstaring axe
And beatification, outstaring
What had begun to feel like reverence.
Comments (1)
Kristen Williams said
at 9:05 pm on Apr 30, 2009
The Bog girl uncovered in Heaney’s poem is equated to a plant being uncovered in a preserved state. The body is well-preserved but it is, still, a body. I feel Heaney desensitizes the subject of the poem by writing about the girl as if she is a plant, a natural part of the bog element. In this way the reader can visualize a girl as a “perishable treasure” but are not so quickly struck by the morbidity of the incident. At the same time Heaney is trying to express that people in general are becoming more and more desensitized to violence and killing and general morbidity. His reference of Diodorus Siculus is a Greek historian from the 1st century AD “who recorded his reactions to murder and violence commenting that with each atrocity he became more desensitized” (internet research). By the continual portrayal of violence in society, people feel less for more augmented violence. This is furthered by Heaney’s repetition of “outstaring” (Outstaring - To overcome by or as if by staring; stare down) where increased staring and focus on this bog girl and her beheaded body does not result in fear or a sense of incredibly wrong against humanity. Instead, the intense focus takes on an almost religious fervor that upon realizing, feels more like reverence than shock. (Reverence - 1. A feeling of profound awe and respect and often love; veneration. 2. An act showing respect, especially a bow or curtsy. 3. The state of being revered.) (Beatification - 1. To make blessedly happy. 2. Roman Catholic Church To proclaim (a deceased person) to be one of the blessed and thus worthy of public religious veneration in a particular region or religious congregation. 3. To exalt above all others.) ~Kristen Williams
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