Mother – son relationship Essay Example

highpoint of their relationship. The Holy Saturday liturgy depicted in the sixth sonnet seems to bring them together.

The poet derives joy and happiness from the fact that he kneels elbow to elbow, next to his mother. A feeling of indescribable gladness flows from this sonnet. The Resurrection - the most important holiday for every Catholic - gives them a unique opportunity to become even closer. They could sing the psalms together and praise God: '(...) glad to be kneeling next to each other up there near the front of the packed church, we would follow the text and the rubrics'. 4

The second sonnet in the cycle shows another aspect of the mother - son relationship. In the first eight - lined section of this poem the memories from Heaney's family house are recalled:

'Polished linoleum shone there. Brass taps shone.

The china cups were very white and big -

An unchipped set with sugar bowl and jug.

The kettle whistled. Sandwich and teascone

were present and correct(...)'5

Due to the poet's mother that home was not only neat, tidy and ordered and with the traditional tea but also full of warm, cordial and hospitable atmosphere. Such description of the house, filled with still vivid recollections, ennobles Heaney's mother as a housewife and shows great respect and admiration for the ordinary but nevertheless important house duties she performed every day. In the further part of this sonnet the poet also presents the rules that prevailed in his family home:

'(...) In case it run,

The butter must be kept out of the sun.

And don't be dropping crumbs. Don't tilt your chair.

Don't reach. Don't point. Don't make noise when you stir'6

This fragment has also some

metaphorical meaning: it suggests a kind of a private universe of Heaney's family in which all the rules were simple and clear. Those rules constitute a family 'Decalogue' which was obeyed meticulously.

Heaney's mother cared for his good manners and did not hesitate to remind him about proper behaviour every now and then. The stream of short orders coming one after another indicates that the reproaches and admonishments annoyed the poet in the past when he was a teenager. Now he recalls them and maybe only now appreciates and understands his mother's care.

Heaney's devotion to his mother is also visible in his recollections of simple, every day house works:

'When all the others were away at Mass

I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.

They broke the silence, let fall one by one

Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:

Cold comforts set between us, things to share

Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.

And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes

From each other's work would bring us to our scenes'7

We can observe the intimacy of the relationship in each poem from this cycle but the third sonnet seems to emphasize this closeness and affection: 'I was all hers (...) little pleasant splashes from each other's work would bring us to our scenes'. However, the memoirs expressed in the sestet are something more than only a repetition of the scene of potato peeling:

'So while parish priest at her bedside

Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying

And some were responding and some crying

I remembered her head bent towards my head

Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives -

Never closer the whole rest of our lives.'8

This scene called once again at the

end of the poem highlights the importance of the mother - son relationship: 'Her breath in mine (...) never closer the whole rest of our lives'. The poet experiences his mother's death in his own way. While the other members of the family were falling into despair at her death bed, he was recalling those exceptional moments when they used to sit head to head peeling potatoes. Due to these recollections Heaney's mother overcame her death. Although she died physically, spiritually she is still alive in his memories.

Surprising as it is, subtle erotism may be found in this poem. Some interpretations suggest that these sonnets include loads of expressions referring to lovers as well as to mother and the son. The bent heads, mingled breaths and the phrases like: 'I was all hers' or 'Never closer the whole rest of our lives' when taken out of the context may be associated with love stories, texts from Valentine's cards('Be mine') or with direct love confessions. As Cheryl Alexander Malcolm suggests in the essay entitled: 'Przebiegly podgladacz: Heaney jako poeta erotyczny'9 it is also hard to ignore rather surprising and weird for such a context but still present sexual connotations like: 'solder weeping off the soldering iron' or 'our fluent dipping knives'.

However, I would call it a kind of overinterpretation as for me it has nothing to do with erotism. The fragment: 'solder weeping off the soldering iron' suggests rather motif of 'lacrymae rerum' implying that when people cannot express their thoughts and feelings, things will cry. It is crucial to state here that absolutely nothing suggests that this relationship went beyond conventional frames of ordinary mother

- son relationship.

These moments only constitute integral part of the picture of physical and spiritual harmony shown in this poem. The poet and his mother are presented as 'never closer for the rest of their lives' at the scene of peeling potatoes: they are close to the nature and her fruits (potatoes) and her elements (earth and water).10In this ordinary and mundane house work they are as natural as is their love and relationship.

In the next sonnet from this cycle the bond between Heaney and his mother is presented as a linguistic problem of the 'adjusted and adequate betrayal' that he committed in favour of 'wrong grammar' that, as he states himself, 'kept us allied and at bay'.

'Fear of affectation made her affect

Inadequacy whenever it came to

Pronouncing words 'beyond her'. Bertold Brek

She'd manage something hampered and askew

Every time, as if she might betray

The hampered and inadequate by too

Well - adjusted a vocabulary

With more challenge than pride, she'd tell me, 'You

Know all them things'. So I governed my tongue

In front of her, a genuinely well -

adjusted adequate betrayal

Of what I knew better. I'd naw and aye

And decently relapsed into the wrong

Grammar which kept us allied and at bay.'11

The opening lines of this sonnet describe the behaviour of the poet's mother while talking to someone. Mary Kathleen, a simple and very modest woman, fearing she might be perceived as unnatural and insincere posed to be inadequate in pronouncing the words that were 'beyond her'. She did not want to be taken as better educated and haughty and therefore 'she'd manage something hampered and askew'. In that way her pronouncing the name of the famous writer 'Bertold Brek'

did not betray those who were uneducated. Being aware of her shortcomings, Mary Kathleen could get rid of her pride and with challenge kept admonishing her well - educated son with a simple and modest remark: 'You know all them things'

It is the language that sustains the relationship and tightens the family bonds. In this fourth sonnet from 'Clearances' Heaney recollects his great efforts to adjust to his mother's infrequent and rare sensibility to the formal, adequate and sophisticated language: 'So I governed my tongue/ in front of her (...) I'd naw and aye/ and decently relapsed into the wrong grammar'. Finding 'the proper and adequate words' was the poet's way not to hurt his mother and in that way betray her.

The poet governed his tongue and adjusted the pronunciation not to show his 'superiority' over his mother. Heaney was ready to be disloyal towards his convictions and his knowledge only to share the next common ground - namely, the 'wrong grammar' that made their relationship flourish. The betrayal of what he knew better was smooth and 'genuinely well - adjusted'. Of course in such sense the betrayal had positive meaning since it did not aim at hurting anybody and on the contrary it showed the devotion to the mother and the inexpressible love that went beyond the words. This 'adequate betrayal' is for the sake of appearances; they both pretend, so they do not reveal the truth, only to be closer.

The hard everyday work, with which Heaney identifies himself in many of his poems and which is unceasingly celebrated by him, is another link between the poet and his mother. The poet's most precious

recollections concerning his deceased mother are closely related to the world of house chores that undoubtedly are arduous, wearying and strenuous. However, such duties demand considerable and substantial abilities without which fulfilling them would be useless and above all - impossible. By virtue of the very detailed description of a particular kind of work the poet's mother performed, Heaney himself wants to ennoble her - as if she was the only one who can realise herself best through the physical work. The fifth sonnet is once again a metaphorical reflection of ambivalent tensions and paradoxes between mother and the son:

'The cool that came off sheets just off the line

Made me think the damp must still be in them

But when I took my corners of the linen

And pulled against her, first straight down the hem

And then diagonally, then flapped and shook

The fabric like a sail in a cross - wind,

They made a dried - out undulating thwack.

So we'd stretch and fold and end up hand to hand

For a split second as if nothing had happened

For nothing had that had not always happened

Beforehand, day by day, just touch and go,

Coming close again by holding back

In moves where I was x and she was o

Inscribed in sheets she'd sewn from ripped - out flour sacks.12

This sonnet precisely and scrupulously describes and celebrates the work itself. By the means of such exact and precise illustration of pulling off the sheets the poet reflects not only the precision and the unique abilities but also the devotion to work. This very simple work, demands, however, not only very specific and distinct movements, but it also requires a lot of patience and

commitment:

'I took my corners of the linen/ and pulled against her, first down the hem/ and then diagonally, then flapped and shook (...)'. After a further analysis of the poem the reader may notice that the recollection of this particular moment is nothing but pleasure and another occasion to bring to mind the radiant past related to his mother, mutual cooperation and the engagement in everyday life and rituals.

The smooth, fluent and coordinated movements while pulling off the sheets show great understanding and perfect cooperation between Heaney and his mother; they also evoke associations with the movements performed during a dance: '(...) so we'd stretch and fold and end up hand to hand for a split second (...) just touch and go, coming close again by holding back(...)'. Those accidental, timid and furtive touches are described as if they were the highpoints of their mutual closeness. Those 'split seconds' when the one hand touches another reflect the poet's longing for his mother but also show the innocent, pure, full of respect, trust and love relationship.

Mentioning the 'sheets she'd sewn from ripped - out flour sacks' in the last line of the sonnet gives the reader another picture of Mary Kathleen Heaney namely, it reflects her thriftiness as well as her resourcefulness in life and respect for everything she owned.

The seventh sonnet depicts the moment of Mary Kathleen's entering the 'Land of the Dead'.

'In the last minutes he said more to her

Almost than in all their life together.

'You'll be in New Row on Monday night

And I'll come up for you and you'll be glad

When I walk in the door...Isn't that right?'

His head was bent down to

her propped - up head.

She could not hear but we were overjoyed.

He called her good and girl. Then she was dead.

The searching for the pulsebeat was abandoned

And we knew one thing by being there.

The space we stood around had been emptied

Into us to keep, it penetrated

Clearances that suddenly stood open.

High cries were felled and a pure change happened.'13

Here, the poet recollects his father comforting his dying wife: 'You'll be in New Row on Monday night /And I'll come up for you and you'll be glad/ When I walk in the door...Isn't that right?'(...)He called her good and girl.' These particular words of consolation reflect great love, warmth and solace that emanate from them and seem to raise all the rest family members' hearts. Death in this sonnet is depicted as an emptiness that occupies space. After the decease of his mother, Heaney realizes that he stands on the brink of the space void of all feelings.

The 'Clearances' are like open wounds that come along with the death of his mother. The empty space left by her penetrates the poet's soul and brings all the memoirs back again vivid and alive. Heaney experiences and understands his mother's demise in a Catholic way. He believes that one day he and all members of his family will 'sit down in the shining room together'. Heaney realizes that human's death is irreversible and unavoidable but the 'pure change' coming shortly after the moments of despair gives him hope for eternal life.

The last sonnet in the cycle is a reflection that the speaker has after the death of his mother:

'I thought of walking round and round a space

Utterly empty, utterly

a source

Where the decked chestnut tree had lost its place

In our front hedge above the wallflowers.

The white chips jumped and jumped and skited high.

I heard the hatchet's differentiated

Accurate cut, the crack, the sigh

And collapse of what luxuriated

Through the shocked tips and wreckage of it all.

Deep - planted and long gone, my coeval

Chestnut from a jam jar in a hole,

Its heft and hush become a bright nowhere,

A soul ramifying and forever

Silent, beyond silence listened for.14

This sonnet is a symbolic depiction of death. The 'decked chestnut' is an image of life and suffering. The poet's life ends along with his mother's death. Heaney wrestles with his thoughts; the feeling of unimaginable and overwhelming emptiness comes along with the death of his mother. The poet came to a standstill. He is spiritually paralysed. His mother's demise leaves only space that is both utterly empty and utterly a source.

The decked chestnut that is cut down symbolizes the speaker's soul. The tree - the poet's coeval, which was grown in a jam jar, collapses and leaves nothing but a 'bright nowhere'. The same is with Heaney's spirit; it is scattered into pieces and the poet himself 'beyond the silence listened for' broods over the past and muses on the great mystery of death.