Like other Heaney poems, ‘A Constable Calls’ is based on a memory.
The setting for the poem is the Heaney family farm at Mossbawn.
In the poem, Seamus Heaney tells us about an episode from his childhood. The poet describes a policeman making an official visit to his father's farm at Mossbawn.
During the visit, the policeman wrote down crop totals for the farm. Back then, in Ulster, policemen gathered information about crops. Seamus Heaney was a boy then and he watched the scene anxiously.
The poet looks at tensions in society in ‘A Constable Calls’. The poem shows the fears felt by a Catholic farming family. Catholics did not join the police. Catholics feared, distrusted and disliked the Protestant police.
Heaney’s father was cold and distant to the policeman during the visit.
Seamus Heaney as a young boy was terrified. During the visit the boy was nervous about the things the policeman had. The poem shows us the tension Heaney felt during the visit.
There are nine stanzas of four lines each.
In this poem, Heaney describes props. Props are the things in a room or scene. Props are the things that belong to someone. The props often reveal what a person is like.
What is the policeman’s name? What does his face look like? How tall is he?
These are unanswered questions. The poem focuses on the impact the policeman had on Heaney. Heaney describes the policeman’s props in a way that shows his power and attitude.
Heaney’s descriptions show his childish imagination. Heaney’s words show his fears.
The props in this poem include a bicycle, a uniform, a book, a baton and a gun.
Heaney describes these props in such a way that he persuades us to dislike the policeman.
In the first stanza, Heaney describes the policeman’s bicycle. He tells us some facts about the bicycle:
‘His bicycle stood at the window-sill’.
He describes its mud splasher, fixed to the mudguard. The bicycle was neat.
Heaney uses the bicycle to tell us how he felt about the policeman in the fourth line:
‘fat black handlegrips’.
This description is ugly. A child would fear something ‘fat’ and ‘black’. Heaney chooses words that tell us how Catholic families on farms viewed the police. The child Heaney imagines that the bicycle was as horrible as the policeman. In Heaney’s imagination, the bicycle was alive. It was ‘fat’ and it ‘stood’. It frightened the child Heaney.
In the second stanza, Heaney describes a part that you don’t normally find on a bicycle today: ‘spud of the dynamo’. Nowadays, batteries power bicycle lights. He uses the phrase ‘cocked back’. That phrase reminds us of the trigger of a gun. It shows that Heaney thought the policeman was dangerous. The policeman seemed to be prepared for violence. The words show us the fear young Heaney had.
Then Heaney shows his feeling that the policeman was a heavy man. He suggests that the pedal was relieved when the policeman got off. This description shows the boy’s fear:
‘the boot of the law’.
He felt the boot might injure his family. He thought the policeman was violent. Perhaps Heaney felt the law was not on his family’s side. Law existed to kick you or control you if you were a Catholic.
In the third stanza, Heaney describes the policeman’s cap. Heaney’s father did not politely take it from him. His father was not mannerly to the policeman. The cap ‘was upside down on the floor’.
Heaney also describes the mark made by the rim of the cap on the policeman’s sweaty hair. This description is unpleasant.
Heaney is focusing on the props. This time it is the uniform. The policeman’s uniform represented power. Heaney was afraid of this power. Heaney is showing us that he disliked the policeman.
Perhaps the policeman was not relaxed as he sweated in front of a hostile farmer. He was sticky after his cycle to the farm at Mossbawn.
The third stanza shows that the visit was uncomfortable for all of them.
In the fourth stanza, Heaney describes the record book of the policeman:
‘heavy ledger’. This is the policeman’s most important prop.
The word ‘heavy’ shows something frightening about the policeman.
All the words show how a child with a big imagination became terrified.
Then Heaney tells us what his father was doing with the policeman. The poet’s father was giving details of the amount of crops he had grown. He used measurements of acres and fractions of acres.
In the fifth stanza, Heaney sums up the situation in two words. He refers to the way the policeman added up the details: ‘Arithmetic’. He then refers to the atmosphere in the room: ‘fear’.
At this point, the young Heaney noticed the policeman’s gun holster. You can sense his emotion of complete fear. He just stared at the holster and the revolver butt for a long time. Heaney describes it in a factual way
In the sixth stanza, the policeman questioned the poet’s father about his crops. The policeman was business-like:
‘Any other crops?’
His father answered abruptly: ‘No’. The farmer was not friendly towards the policeman.
Then his son had a frightening thought. He remembered a drill of turnips his father forgot. Maybe his father didn’t want to admit to growing these turnips. Maybe he forgot. But young Heaney felt very worried.
In the seventh stanza, young Heaney feared his father would be found out. He ‘assumed small guilts’. This caused the boy to imagine his father locked in the black hole of the police station:
‘Imagining the black hole in the barracks’.
At this high point of fear, the policeman stood up to leave. The policeman frightened the child by adjusting his ‘baton-case’.
In the eighth stanza, the boy noticed the policeman closing the record book. Young Heaney dreaded this book. The adult Heaney makes this fear known to the reader by comparing ‘the heavy ledger’ to the ‘domesday book’. This shows his dislike for the ledger.
'Domesday book' is a nickname people gave to a hated survey of lands by an English king. In people’s minds, it is the name of a book that God will check at the end of time. He will judge people by what the book states about them at the end of the world. It may send some of them to hell.
The ‘the heavy ledger’ could send Heaney’s father to jail.
The frightened boy noticed how the policeman fixed his black uniform cap on his head. He watched anxiously as the policeman prepared to leave. He felt fear as the policeman looked at him while saying goodbye.
In the last stanza, the frightened boy saw the policeman’s shadow outside the window. The boy may have been afraid to go back out to the bicycle with the ‘fat black handlegrips’. The policeman was fixing the record book securely on the carrier. The word ‘snapping’ shows the policeman was sour and business-like. It may also show his feeling of power.
Heaney uses the word ‘bobbed’ to show how the policeman moved outside the window. It is funny how Heaney uses the word ‘bobbed’. ‘Bobbed’ means up and down movement. But there is a word play. A nickname for a policeman in Britain is ‘Bobby’. Heaney is getting revenge by mocking the policeman in the poem. This type of word play is a ‘pun’.
The final image imitates the sound of the bicycle as it moved off:
‘the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked’.
The word ‘ticked’ shows that the child Heaney noted the noise of the bicycle as the policeman cycled it away.
But the last line is another joke. It is a word play. A clock ticks. The adult Heaney may be referring to a clock that is used as a timer in a bomb. He means that the hatred between the police and farmers will lead to explosions in the future.
The policeman represents the State. Heaney is saying to us that the behaviour of the policeman towards a Catholic farmer adds to the deep hatred that already exists. Heaney believes that this hatred was the seed of the troubles in the North.
Themes
The theme of this poem is distrust and fear:
‘Arithmetic and fear’.
The poet portrays distrust between a Protestant policeman and a Catholic farmer:
‘Any other root crops? Mangolds? Marrowstems? Anything like that?
No’.
In this poem, Seamus Heaney portrays the costume and props of a policeman in clear visual detail:
‘I sat staring at the polished holster
With its buttoned flap, the braid cord
Looped into the revolver butt’.
The poet shows us the way violent conflict begins:
‘the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked’.
The poet shows how powerless people fear authority:
‘the boot of the law’.
The poet portrays the overactive imagination of a child:
‘Imagining the black hole in the barracks’.
Tones
The tone at the start is neutral and factual:
‘His bicycle stood at the window-sill’.
Sometimes the tone is distasteful and sickened:
‘Its fat black handle grips’.
Sometimes the tone is humorous and weird. An example of this is when Heaney imagined that the bicycle is a living thing that hates the policeman’s weight:
‘The pedal treads hanging relieved of the boot of the law’.
Sometimes the tone is disgusted:
‘his slightly sweating hair’.
Sometimes the tone is frightened:
‘Arithmetic and fear. I sat staring at the polished holster’.
Sometimes the tone is guilty:
‘Imagining the black hole in the barracks’.
Sometimes the tone is tense:
‘Any other root crops?…No’.
Sometimes the tone is humorous and mocking:
‘A shadow bobbed in the window’.
Sometimes the tone is gloomy and threatening:
‘the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked’.
Sometimes there is a tone of dread:
‘domesday book’.
Sometimes the tone is formal and unfriendly:
‘Fitted his cap back with two hands,
And looked at me as he said goodbye’.
Imagery
The images are factual and imaginative.
The central image is the policeman and his props. Props are the things in a room or scene. Props are the things that belong to someone. The props often reveal what a person is like. Props in this poem include a bicycle, uniform, a book, a baton and a gun.
Heaney describes these props in such a way that we dislike the policeman.
There are twenty factual images in the poem.
These images can be grouped into groups of images.
The first group contains seven bicycle images.
The bicycle is the policeman’s main prop. Props are the things that belong to someone. The props often reveal what a person is like.
‘his bicycle…
the rubber cowl of a mud-splasher…
the front mudguard…
handle grips heating in sunlight…
the ´spud´of the dynamo…
the pedal treads…
carrier spring.’
The second group contains four factual images of the rest of the policeman’s props. Props are the things that belong to someone. The props often reveal what a person is like.
‘his cap was upside down on the floor…the line of its pressure…
heavy ledger…
polished holster with its buttoned flap,
the braid cord looped into the revolver butt…
shifted the baton-case further round on his belt…’
The third group contains five factual images of the farm and its activities
‘tillage returns in acres, roods, and perches…
mangolds…
marrowstems…
a line of turnips where the seed ran out…
potato field…’
The fourth group contains three factual images of the kitchen where the visit took place.
‘window-sill…
his chair…
window’
There is one image of the weather:
‘the sunlight’.
There are four metaphors in the poem. A metaphor is a comparison image. A metaphor compares two different things in order to illustrate one of them.
The first two of these examples are also personification. A metaphor which compares a thing such as a bicycle to person is called personification.
‘Its fat black handle grips…’
[This description compares the handle grips to a heavy person. This metaphor is personification. It is unattractive description. A child would fear something ‘fat’ and ‘black’. Heaney chooses words that tell us how Catholic families on farms viewed the police.]
‘The pedal treads hanging relieved of the boot of the law…’
[The word ‘boot’ is a metaphor for the tough, cruel way the police behave.
This description compares the pedals of the bicycle to a living being.
This metaphor is personification. Heaney suggests that the pedal was relieved when the policeman got off. This description shows the boy’s fear.]
‘Closed the domesday book…’
[Heaney compares the hardback record book of the policeman to a historical book. Heaney reveals his childhood fear here. He compares ‘the heavy ledger’ to the ‘domesday book’. In this metaphor, ‘domesday’ shows fear. 'Domesday book' was a hated survey of farms in England back in history. People believed that God would check at the end of time. It will send some to hell. The ledger could send Heaney’s father to jail.]
‘And the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked’.
[Heaney is comparing the sound of the bicycle chain to a clock. A clock ticks. Heaney is referring to a clock that is used as a timer in a bomb. He means that the hatred between the police and farmers will lead to explosions.]
Sound effects
Alliteration
[Alliteration is the repetition of first letters.]
Note the two ‘b’ sounds in this quote:
‘black hole in the barracks’.
The ‘b’ sound is threatening. It links the colour ‘black’ to ‘barracks’.
Assonance
[Assonance is repetition of vowels.]
Note how three ‘a’ vowels here reinforce the colour black and the boy’s fear:
‘Its fat black handle grips’.
Consonance
[Consonance is repetition of consonant sounds.]
Note the six ‘d’ sounds in the middle of the second stanza. This hard sound increases the atmosphere of fear.
Sibilance
[Sibilance is repetition of ‘s’ sounds].
The four ‘s’ sounds here link the boys eye to the fearful object he is staring at.
‘I sat staring at the polished holster’.
Rhyming
There is no regular rhyming pattern in this lyric. The only line rhyme is between the second and fourth lines of the third stanza. The lack of line rhyming suits the conversational manner. Rhyming dictates word choice and can make word order seem stiff.
Internal Rhyme and Onomatopoeia
[Internal Rhyme is a word or sound rhyming within a line]
[Onomatopoeia is where the sound of the words imitate their meaning.]
Note the way the ‘ticked’ sound occurs three times in this line:
‘And the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked’.
The phrase sounds like a bicycle moving off or a clock. Because the sound of the words imitates a real sound, this is an example of Onomatopoeia.
Internal Rhyme
Note the repeated ‘ow’ sound in this example. This sound effect deepens meaning. The ‘ow’ links ‘shadow’ to ‘window’.
‘A shadow bobbed in the window’.
Rhythm
The rhythm has a natural feeling with the run on lines and run on stanzas.
The lack of formal rhyming helps to keep the rhythm natural. Conversational words maintain the informal air.
Note this dialogue from the sixth stanza:
‘Any other root crops?
Mangolds? Marrowstems? Anything like that?
No’.
The rhythm seems a bit snappy here. The questions are bad-tempered and rude. The one word answer is very abrupt.
Other sound repetitions and the three and four beat lines of the poem give it a light formal rhythm. The dominant rhythm is casual or conversational.
The poem feels like an anecdote, a personal story about a dreaded visit. The poem is factually and sincerely addressed to the reader.
Copyright © 2008 Intel CorporationContact us | About skoool | skoool Awards | About Supporters | Terms of Use | Privacy & Security
The setting for the poem is the Heaney family farm at Mossbawn.
In the poem, Seamus Heaney tells us about an episode from his childhood. The poet describes a policeman making an official visit to his father's farm at Mossbawn.
During the visit, the policeman wrote down crop totals for the farm. Back then, in Ulster, policemen gathered information about crops. Seamus Heaney was a boy then and he watched the scene anxiously.
The poet looks at tensions in society in ‘A Constable Calls’. The poem shows the fears felt by a Catholic farming family. Catholics did not join the police. Catholics feared, distrusted and disliked the Protestant police.
Heaney’s father was cold and distant to the policeman during the visit.
Seamus Heaney as a young boy was terrified. During the visit the boy was nervous about the things the policeman had. The poem shows us the tension Heaney felt during the visit.
There are nine stanzas of four lines each.
In this poem, Heaney describes props. Props are the things in a room or scene. Props are the things that belong to someone. The props often reveal what a person is like.
What is the policeman’s name? What does his face look like? How tall is he?
These are unanswered questions. The poem focuses on the impact the policeman had on Heaney. Heaney describes the policeman’s props in a way that shows his power and attitude.
Heaney’s descriptions show his childish imagination. Heaney’s words show his fears.
The props in this poem include a bicycle, a uniform, a book, a baton and a gun.
Heaney describes these props in such a way that he persuades us to dislike the policeman.
In the first stanza, Heaney describes the policeman’s bicycle. He tells us some facts about the bicycle:
‘His bicycle stood at the window-sill’.
He describes its mud splasher, fixed to the mudguard. The bicycle was neat.
Heaney uses the bicycle to tell us how he felt about the policeman in the fourth line:
‘fat black handlegrips’.
This description is ugly. A child would fear something ‘fat’ and ‘black’. Heaney chooses words that tell us how Catholic families on farms viewed the police. The child Heaney imagines that the bicycle was as horrible as the policeman. In Heaney’s imagination, the bicycle was alive. It was ‘fat’ and it ‘stood’. It frightened the child Heaney.
In the second stanza, Heaney describes a part that you don’t normally find on a bicycle today: ‘spud of the dynamo’. Nowadays, batteries power bicycle lights. He uses the phrase ‘cocked back’. That phrase reminds us of the trigger of a gun. It shows that Heaney thought the policeman was dangerous. The policeman seemed to be prepared for violence. The words show us the fear young Heaney had.
Then Heaney shows his feeling that the policeman was a heavy man. He suggests that the pedal was relieved when the policeman got off. This description shows the boy’s fear:
‘the boot of the law’.
He felt the boot might injure his family. He thought the policeman was violent. Perhaps Heaney felt the law was not on his family’s side. Law existed to kick you or control you if you were a Catholic.
In the third stanza, Heaney describes the policeman’s cap. Heaney’s father did not politely take it from him. His father was not mannerly to the policeman. The cap ‘was upside down on the floor’.
Heaney also describes the mark made by the rim of the cap on the policeman’s sweaty hair. This description is unpleasant.
Heaney is focusing on the props. This time it is the uniform. The policeman’s uniform represented power. Heaney was afraid of this power. Heaney is showing us that he disliked the policeman.
Perhaps the policeman was not relaxed as he sweated in front of a hostile farmer. He was sticky after his cycle to the farm at Mossbawn.
The third stanza shows that the visit was uncomfortable for all of them.
In the fourth stanza, Heaney describes the record book of the policeman:
‘heavy ledger’. This is the policeman’s most important prop.
The word ‘heavy’ shows something frightening about the policeman.
All the words show how a child with a big imagination became terrified.
Then Heaney tells us what his father was doing with the policeman. The poet’s father was giving details of the amount of crops he had grown. He used measurements of acres and fractions of acres.
In the fifth stanza, Heaney sums up the situation in two words. He refers to the way the policeman added up the details: ‘Arithmetic’. He then refers to the atmosphere in the room: ‘fear’.
At this point, the young Heaney noticed the policeman’s gun holster. You can sense his emotion of complete fear. He just stared at the holster and the revolver butt for a long time. Heaney describes it in a factual way
In the sixth stanza, the policeman questioned the poet’s father about his crops. The policeman was business-like:
‘Any other crops?’
His father answered abruptly: ‘No’. The farmer was not friendly towards the policeman.
Then his son had a frightening thought. He remembered a drill of turnips his father forgot. Maybe his father didn’t want to admit to growing these turnips. Maybe he forgot. But young Heaney felt very worried.
In the seventh stanza, young Heaney feared his father would be found out. He ‘assumed small guilts’. This caused the boy to imagine his father locked in the black hole of the police station:
‘Imagining the black hole in the barracks’.
At this high point of fear, the policeman stood up to leave. The policeman frightened the child by adjusting his ‘baton-case’.
In the eighth stanza, the boy noticed the policeman closing the record book. Young Heaney dreaded this book. The adult Heaney makes this fear known to the reader by comparing ‘the heavy ledger’ to the ‘domesday book’. This shows his dislike for the ledger.
'Domesday book' is a nickname people gave to a hated survey of lands by an English king. In people’s minds, it is the name of a book that God will check at the end of time. He will judge people by what the book states about them at the end of the world. It may send some of them to hell.
The ‘the heavy ledger’ could send Heaney’s father to jail.
The frightened boy noticed how the policeman fixed his black uniform cap on his head. He watched anxiously as the policeman prepared to leave. He felt fear as the policeman looked at him while saying goodbye.
In the last stanza, the frightened boy saw the policeman’s shadow outside the window. The boy may have been afraid to go back out to the bicycle with the ‘fat black handlegrips’. The policeman was fixing the record book securely on the carrier. The word ‘snapping’ shows the policeman was sour and business-like. It may also show his feeling of power.
Heaney uses the word ‘bobbed’ to show how the policeman moved outside the window. It is funny how Heaney uses the word ‘bobbed’. ‘Bobbed’ means up and down movement. But there is a word play. A nickname for a policeman in Britain is ‘Bobby’. Heaney is getting revenge by mocking the policeman in the poem. This type of word play is a ‘pun’.
The final image imitates the sound of the bicycle as it moved off:
‘the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked’.
The word ‘ticked’ shows that the child Heaney noted the noise of the bicycle as the policeman cycled it away.
But the last line is another joke. It is a word play. A clock ticks. The adult Heaney may be referring to a clock that is used as a timer in a bomb. He means that the hatred between the police and farmers will lead to explosions in the future.
The policeman represents the State. Heaney is saying to us that the behaviour of the policeman towards a Catholic farmer adds to the deep hatred that already exists. Heaney believes that this hatred was the seed of the troubles in the North.
Themes
The theme of this poem is distrust and fear:
‘Arithmetic and fear’.
The poet portrays distrust between a Protestant policeman and a Catholic farmer:
‘Any other root crops? Mangolds? Marrowstems? Anything like that?
No’.
In this poem, Seamus Heaney portrays the costume and props of a policeman in clear visual detail:
‘I sat staring at the polished holster
With its buttoned flap, the braid cord
Looped into the revolver butt’.
The poet shows us the way violent conflict begins:
‘the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked’.
The poet shows how powerless people fear authority:
‘the boot of the law’.
The poet portrays the overactive imagination of a child:
‘Imagining the black hole in the barracks’.
Tones
The tone at the start is neutral and factual:
‘His bicycle stood at the window-sill’.
Sometimes the tone is distasteful and sickened:
‘Its fat black handle grips’.
Sometimes the tone is humorous and weird. An example of this is when Heaney imagined that the bicycle is a living thing that hates the policeman’s weight:
‘The pedal treads hanging relieved of the boot of the law’.
Sometimes the tone is disgusted:
‘his slightly sweating hair’.
Sometimes the tone is frightened:
‘Arithmetic and fear. I sat staring at the polished holster’.
Sometimes the tone is guilty:
‘Imagining the black hole in the barracks’.
Sometimes the tone is tense:
‘Any other root crops?…No’.
Sometimes the tone is humorous and mocking:
‘A shadow bobbed in the window’.
Sometimes the tone is gloomy and threatening:
‘the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked’.
Sometimes there is a tone of dread:
‘domesday book’.
Sometimes the tone is formal and unfriendly:
‘Fitted his cap back with two hands,
And looked at me as he said goodbye’.
Imagery
The images are factual and imaginative.
The central image is the policeman and his props. Props are the things in a room or scene. Props are the things that belong to someone. The props often reveal what a person is like. Props in this poem include a bicycle, uniform, a book, a baton and a gun.
Heaney describes these props in such a way that we dislike the policeman.
There are twenty factual images in the poem.
These images can be grouped into groups of images.
The first group contains seven bicycle images.
The bicycle is the policeman’s main prop. Props are the things that belong to someone. The props often reveal what a person is like.
‘his bicycle…
the rubber cowl of a mud-splasher…
the front mudguard…
handle grips heating in sunlight…
the ´spud´of the dynamo…
the pedal treads…
carrier spring.’
The second group contains four factual images of the rest of the policeman’s props. Props are the things that belong to someone. The props often reveal what a person is like.
‘his cap was upside down on the floor…the line of its pressure…
heavy ledger…
polished holster with its buttoned flap,
the braid cord looped into the revolver butt…
shifted the baton-case further round on his belt…’
The third group contains five factual images of the farm and its activities
‘tillage returns in acres, roods, and perches…
mangolds…
marrowstems…
a line of turnips where the seed ran out…
potato field…’
The fourth group contains three factual images of the kitchen where the visit took place.
‘window-sill…
his chair…
window’
There is one image of the weather:
‘the sunlight’.
There are four metaphors in the poem. A metaphor is a comparison image. A metaphor compares two different things in order to illustrate one of them.
The first two of these examples are also personification. A metaphor which compares a thing such as a bicycle to person is called personification.
‘Its fat black handle grips…’
[This description compares the handle grips to a heavy person. This metaphor is personification. It is unattractive description. A child would fear something ‘fat’ and ‘black’. Heaney chooses words that tell us how Catholic families on farms viewed the police.]
‘The pedal treads hanging relieved of the boot of the law…’
[The word ‘boot’ is a metaphor for the tough, cruel way the police behave.
This description compares the pedals of the bicycle to a living being.
This metaphor is personification. Heaney suggests that the pedal was relieved when the policeman got off. This description shows the boy’s fear.]
‘Closed the domesday book…’
[Heaney compares the hardback record book of the policeman to a historical book. Heaney reveals his childhood fear here. He compares ‘the heavy ledger’ to the ‘domesday book’. In this metaphor, ‘domesday’ shows fear. 'Domesday book' was a hated survey of farms in England back in history. People believed that God would check at the end of time. It will send some to hell. The ledger could send Heaney’s father to jail.]
‘And the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked’.
[Heaney is comparing the sound of the bicycle chain to a clock. A clock ticks. Heaney is referring to a clock that is used as a timer in a bomb. He means that the hatred between the police and farmers will lead to explosions.]
Sound effects
Alliteration
[Alliteration is the repetition of first letters.]
Note the two ‘b’ sounds in this quote:
‘black hole in the barracks’.
The ‘b’ sound is threatening. It links the colour ‘black’ to ‘barracks’.
Assonance
[Assonance is repetition of vowels.]
Note how three ‘a’ vowels here reinforce the colour black and the boy’s fear:
‘Its fat black handle grips’.
Consonance
[Consonance is repetition of consonant sounds.]
Note the six ‘d’ sounds in the middle of the second stanza. This hard sound increases the atmosphere of fear.
Sibilance
[Sibilance is repetition of ‘s’ sounds].
The four ‘s’ sounds here link the boys eye to the fearful object he is staring at.
‘I sat staring at the polished holster’.
Rhyming
There is no regular rhyming pattern in this lyric. The only line rhyme is between the second and fourth lines of the third stanza. The lack of line rhyming suits the conversational manner. Rhyming dictates word choice and can make word order seem stiff.
Internal Rhyme and Onomatopoeia
[Internal Rhyme is a word or sound rhyming within a line]
[Onomatopoeia is where the sound of the words imitate their meaning.]
Note the way the ‘ticked’ sound occurs three times in this line:
‘And the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked’.
The phrase sounds like a bicycle moving off or a clock. Because the sound of the words imitates a real sound, this is an example of Onomatopoeia.
Internal Rhyme
Note the repeated ‘ow’ sound in this example. This sound effect deepens meaning. The ‘ow’ links ‘shadow’ to ‘window’.
‘A shadow bobbed in the window’.
Rhythm
The rhythm has a natural feeling with the run on lines and run on stanzas.
The lack of formal rhyming helps to keep the rhythm natural. Conversational words maintain the informal air.
Note this dialogue from the sixth stanza:
‘Any other root crops?
Mangolds? Marrowstems? Anything like that?
No’.
The rhythm seems a bit snappy here. The questions are bad-tempered and rude. The one word answer is very abrupt.
Other sound repetitions and the three and four beat lines of the poem give it a light formal rhythm. The dominant rhythm is casual or conversational.
The poem feels like an anecdote, a personal story about a dreaded visit. The poem is factually and sincerely addressed to the reader.
Copyright © 2008 Intel CorporationContact us | About skoool | skoool Awards | About Supporters | Terms of Use | Privacy & Security
INTRODUCTION
A Constable Calls combines three important themes in Heaney's poetry. Firstly it is an autobiographical childhood poem. Secondly it's a poem that communicates a moment of epiphany - an experience of intense, powerful and vivid insight. Finally it's a poem that links to the political and cultural conflicts that existed in Northern Ireland during Heaney's childhood - and still exist to some extent in Northern Ireland today.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE POEM
The poem takes a routine - perhaps annual - visit by a local official who is checking and recording the crops and assets of the farm Heaney grew up on in County Derry. This is done for tax purposes. It will enable the British and protestant administration in Ulster to charge an accurate tax on Heaney's family.
The young Heaney - perhaps aged 10 watches his Roman Catholic father being questioned by a Protestant police constable. Heaney's eye focuses on his bicycle, cap, ledger - in which the figures are recorded and finally revolver and holster. Then the poem records the last couple of questions asked by the constable and Heaney's emotional and internal response to them. Finally the poem returns to a description of the constable as he prepares to leave.
CHILDHOOD / AUTOBIOGRAPHY
The poem recounts an incident in Heaney's childhood. It takes place in the family home with his father. Seamus is a marginal passive figure in the poem observing the main action and taking in details. It is written with a first person narrative voice we take to be Heaney's. It is written in the past tense.
Again Heaney concentrates on an apparently ordinary incident but draws out from this key and familiar topics.
However the poem is dominated by what Heaney observes. He focuses on the props of power and authority.. However in "A Constable Calls" power and authority are located with the constable, not the father whose only response to the constable is a weak "No".
EPIPHANY
Heaney makes the subject of the poem really stand out. One way he does this is the selective but detailed descriptions of the constable and the paraphernalia and symbols of his power for example, 'The line of its pressure ran like a bevel
In his slightly sweating hair.' This line shows a very specific detail that perhaps only a child would notice. The constable 'sweating' might indicate the heat of the afternoon but also helps create tension.
Heaney creates a tension in the poem with references for example to the constable's 'boot', the 'cocked' dynamo, and the line that helps underpin the tension 'Arithmetic and fear.' is very effective. I think also the casual way the symbols of power are mentioned and they are often associated with light, for example, 'Heating in sunlight, the "spud" Of the dynamo gleaming'and polished holster'
POLITICAL / CULTURAL CONFLICT
Political and cultural conflict is introduced at the start of the poem with Heaney's narrative voice focussing on the presence of the constable. Heaney's detailed description of the constable's objects picks up his strangeness. There is something out of place and unexpected about him in this family home.
We can see the constable as a symbol or representative of authority and power in Ulster at the time. And the poem records the family's response to that power partly in Heaney's father's lie but also in the line 'Arithmetic and fear.'
Suppressed physical violence is an important feature of this poem. It exists as a presence or a possibility throughout the poem. It is explicit in the references to the "revolver" and "polished holster" as well as the "baton-case" in the seventh stanza. The young Heaney cannot help "staring" at the gun - a child's privilege. However there are also less direct references to republican violence - a bomb attack on a barracks referred to in the line "...Imagining the black hole in the barracks." and the final "...And the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked."
Adapted from http://conjuredsunlightcommentaries.blogspot.ie/2010/06/constable-calls.html
A Constable Calls combines three important themes in Heaney's poetry. Firstly it is an autobiographical childhood poem. Secondly it's a poem that communicates a moment of epiphany - an experience of intense, powerful and vivid insight. Finally it's a poem that links to the political and cultural conflicts that existed in Northern Ireland during Heaney's childhood - and still exist to some extent in Northern Ireland today.
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE POEM
The poem takes a routine - perhaps annual - visit by a local official who is checking and recording the crops and assets of the farm Heaney grew up on in County Derry. This is done for tax purposes. It will enable the British and protestant administration in Ulster to charge an accurate tax on Heaney's family.
The young Heaney - perhaps aged 10 watches his Roman Catholic father being questioned by a Protestant police constable. Heaney's eye focuses on his bicycle, cap, ledger - in which the figures are recorded and finally revolver and holster. Then the poem records the last couple of questions asked by the constable and Heaney's emotional and internal response to them. Finally the poem returns to a description of the constable as he prepares to leave.
CHILDHOOD / AUTOBIOGRAPHY
The poem recounts an incident in Heaney's childhood. It takes place in the family home with his father. Seamus is a marginal passive figure in the poem observing the main action and taking in details. It is written with a first person narrative voice we take to be Heaney's. It is written in the past tense.
Again Heaney concentrates on an apparently ordinary incident but draws out from this key and familiar topics.
However the poem is dominated by what Heaney observes. He focuses on the props of power and authority.. However in "A Constable Calls" power and authority are located with the constable, not the father whose only response to the constable is a weak "No".
EPIPHANY
Heaney makes the subject of the poem really stand out. One way he does this is the selective but detailed descriptions of the constable and the paraphernalia and symbols of his power for example, 'The line of its pressure ran like a bevel
In his slightly sweating hair.' This line shows a very specific detail that perhaps only a child would notice. The constable 'sweating' might indicate the heat of the afternoon but also helps create tension.
Heaney creates a tension in the poem with references for example to the constable's 'boot', the 'cocked' dynamo, and the line that helps underpin the tension 'Arithmetic and fear.' is very effective. I think also the casual way the symbols of power are mentioned and they are often associated with light, for example, 'Heating in sunlight, the "spud" Of the dynamo gleaming'and polished holster'
POLITICAL / CULTURAL CONFLICT
Political and cultural conflict is introduced at the start of the poem with Heaney's narrative voice focussing on the presence of the constable. Heaney's detailed description of the constable's objects picks up his strangeness. There is something out of place and unexpected about him in this family home.
We can see the constable as a symbol or representative of authority and power in Ulster at the time. And the poem records the family's response to that power partly in Heaney's father's lie but also in the line 'Arithmetic and fear.'
Suppressed physical violence is an important feature of this poem. It exists as a presence or a possibility throughout the poem. It is explicit in the references to the "revolver" and "polished holster" as well as the "baton-case" in the seventh stanza. The young Heaney cannot help "staring" at the gun - a child's privilege. However there are also less direct references to republican violence - a bomb attack on a barracks referred to in the line "...Imagining the black hole in the barracks." and the final "...And the bicycle ticked, ticked, ticked."
Adapted from http://conjuredsunlightcommentaries.blogspot.ie/2010/06/constable-calls.html