Poetry- Death of a Naturalist (essay)

How does Heaney convey the process of growing up in ‘Death of a Naturalist’?

Heaney conveys the process of going from childhood into adolescence in ‘Death of a Naturalist’ through vivid imagery and his use of language.

In the first stanza we are immediately told how the ‘flax-dam festered’; the use of the word ‘festered’ implies a sense of decay and all things dying out, suggesting how the poem is going to reflect the ‘Death’ of something. Even though the voice of the first stanza appears to be unaware of this existing element of change due to the naïve tone, the language used such as ‘rotted’ and ‘sweltered’ shows the sense of threat which is gradually developing on the voice of the first stanza. Heaney is using the flax-dam where he grew up in Ireland to symbolise the process of growing up and how the innocence of childhood is stripped away without you even realising it. The concept of simple pleasures within childhood is reflected when Heaney describes how the ‘warm thick slobber of frogspawn’ was ‘best of all’. This massively conveys the innocence of childhood and how serene life can be away from the difficulties of adulthood.

There is further use of child-like, simplistic language in the first stanza such as ‘jellied’ and ‘fattening dots’. The use of this language at once reveals Heaney’s intention to convey life before adolescence as naïve and pure to the world before corruption from life’s actual real life threats.

The volta seen in the second stanza reflects a transition in life as the voice of the poem goes from innocent and unaware of the dangers of the world to being more vulnerable and alone in the world. This abrupt transition from the first stanza to the second stanza reveals how quickly life can change from childhood to adolescence. The use of the word ‘angry’ when describing the ‘frogs’ symbolises the threats faced in life, as well as reinforcing the naivety of children; the frogs would’ve always been angry at the voice of the poem going to collect the frogspawn but due to the lack of corruption of childhood they were just unaware of their wrongdoings. Alternatively, the ‘angry frogs’ could reflect the sense of repercussions and consequences which are harsher as you get older. The language used also develops in the second stanza from the child-like language seen in the first into more sophisticated and ‘grown-up’ language as such. Heaney deliberately uses words such as ‘invaded’ and ‘obscene’ to reflect the development of childhood into adolescence due to the major contrast of these words compared to the words used in the first stanza such as ‘jellied’.

The sense of threat seen in the second stanza is shown through the frequent use of sound imagery as many of the adjectives and verbs feature harsh and violent sounds, suggesting the intimidation of growing up. The description of the ‘bass chorus’ and the ‘pulse(d)’ reflect the semantic field of violence and fear, purposely depicted by Heaney to show how life changes in the transfer from childhood to adulthood. There is further use of sound imagery through the plosive sounds seen in the ‘slop’, ‘plop’, ‘pulsed’ and ‘poised’ which reinforces the threats of the real world and how Heaney finds the thought process of growing up intimidating, as the repetition of the ‘p’ sound is increasingly aggressive the more it is utilised.

Despite this, there is an underlying remanence of naivety reflected through the use of hyperbole and similes. Heaney describes the way they ‘sat poised like mud grenades’; the use of the word grenade only shows an over-exaggerated, immature portrayal which you would expect to hear from a child. This only contradicts the previous point that the second stanza is where the person in the poem is growing up and it could instead suggest that we never actually grow up and our minds are always child-like. Additionally, there is further descriptive language which you’d expect from a child in the second stanza such as the use of the word ‘farting’ and also ‘the great slime kings’. These descriptions are massively immature and as a reader you’d typically expect to hear it from a child. This could be Heaney’s way of showing a resistance to grow up and how the person in the poem is fighting the process of growing up and is choosing to ignore the threats; he is still focusing on everything as if it were still innocent.

Coming to conclusion, I believe that Heaney conveys growing up in ‘Death of a Naturalist’ through the depiction of naivety and innocence as a child being held onto as we transition from childhood into adolescence. The volta from the first stanza to the second is Heaney’s way of showing how we always have remanence from our childhoods still in us even as we have to face the dangers of the real world.

Charlotte Crewe

DWS