Sad child

You're sad because you're sad.It's psychic. It's the age. It's chemical.Go see a shrink or take a pill,or hug your sadness like an eyeless dollyou need to sleep.Well, all children are sadbut some get over it.Count your blessings. Better than that,buy a hat. Buy a coat or pet.Take up dancing to forget.Forget what?Your sadness, your shadow,whatever it was that was done to youthe day of the lawn partywhen you came inside flushed with the sun,your mouth sulky with sugar,in your new dress with the ribbonand the ice-cream smear,and said to yourself in the bathroom,I am not the favorite child.My darling, when it comesright down to itand the light fails and the fog rolls inand you're trapped in your overturned bodyunder a blanket or burning car,and the red flame is seeping out of youand igniting the tarmac beside you heador else the floor, or else the pillow,none of us is;or else we all are.



In Margret Atwood's "A Sad Child" Atwood uses imagery in the form of events to show the coming of women hood and all that is associated with it. She uses this, particularly in the second stanza and forth to show youth along with the emotions which go along with this new experience.
The first instance of the coming of women is the effect of Menstruation on this child. The author offers suggestion for the child's mood (sad) in which the author states " It;s Physic. It's the age It's chemical" Along with the reason for the mood the author offers suggestions such as "you need sleep" The author's tone seems understanding and also knowledge able of it.
A such image of a child figure exposed to women hood is seen in the third stanza. Atwood writes "the day of the lawn party, your mouth sulky with sugar" Here Atwood describes the implications of the child's first experience with menstruation. The mouth with sugar, along with "ice cream smear" represent the child like show the true youth of the sad child.
Atwood uses the Child like imagery above to show youth, while Atwood's forth stanza states "you're trapped in you over turned body.. or burning car" Atwood uses this to show the deep emotion of fear pain and uncertainty of a young women's first experience

Heaney's The follower

My father worked with a horse plough,His shoulders globed like a full sail strungBetween the shafts and the furrow.The horses strained at his clicking tongue.An expert. He would set the wingAnd fit the bright-pointed sock.The sod rolled over without breaking.At the headrig, with a single pluckOf reins, the sweating team turned roundAnd back into the land. His eyeNarrowed and angled at the ground,Mapping the furrow exactly.I stumbled in his hobnailed wake,Fell sometimes on the polished sod;Sometimes he rode me on his backDipping and rising to his plod.I wanted to grow up and plough,To close one eye, stiffen my arm.All I ever did was followIn his broad shadow around the farm.I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,Yapping always. But todayIt is my father who keeps stumblingBehind me, and will not go away.

In Seamus Heraney's Follower, the author uses Nautical imagery as a way to show direction. Heaneys uses nautical imagery to show a theme of direction in ageing, expressed through his father.
This is first seen in how Heaney describes his father. "His father globed like a full sail strung. Heaney He uses this show his fathers strength, as it was like a full sail. Another such nautical imagery is the use of Mapping, in "Mapping his furrow exactly" this is used to show his fathers way of mapping the landscape on his farm.
These images are used, through his father to show the direction of his father taken in life. The importance of direction for the young author is shown the father's description, using nautical imagery. This imagery, which in a literal sense is used for the direction of things, shows the strong influence and importance of these directions. The authors awe, of his father and "wonder" of "An expert" (of plowing) is the reason this nautical imagery is used, as the young boy I believe is in wonder of how his father came to be such a figure. He also may be in wonder to how he could be such as person.

The death of the narrators brother was a strange occurrence as he was killed when four. IN order to reinforce this motif of strange and odd sensations Heney uses other odd situations which the narrator goes through. In Heneys Mid term, Heneys uses odd situations to invoke new or different feelings or sensations. One such odd situation which set a odd tone was one that shows strange, or new feelings. When the narrator meets his father on his houses porch which the narrator "meet my father crying. This I found to be odd, and even ironic, as the father is traditionally a masculinity figure, which shows little emotion.

Another such experience which I found strange for the narrator was when Heney writes "I was embarrassed by the old men coming up to me to shake my hand" Heney shows here a experience which is odd as from the time this was written it was common for the younger men to greet the older men. This I found reinforces the odd situation going on which, at this time, the reader is not aware of what is going on.
These odd experiences I found set atone important to the end of the poem, which he itself was a different and odd experience. The death of the narrators brother, I believe was the reason these odd situations occurred.