The Early Purges
...ed them…’. Heaney also uses words like shot, snared and trapped. All these words relate to death. All these words portray the image of Dan not actually caring for the lives of the seemingly innocent kittens. The most effective line and the most graphic is the line ‘with a sickening tug, pulled old hens' necks.’ This gives the image that the speaker is seeing and “shows” the reader what it might have been like living on a farm. Heaney uses the words ‘tiny din’ which is a oxymoron. The two words completely contradict themselves but are meant to do that. He uses them because on there own they would be pretty irrelevant but together they mean for they’re size the kittens were making a huge noise. The word choice is that of which that it produces a subconscious image of the event described in the poem. This is an effective way of putting across a important event that might have happened like the drowning of the kittens, without this the poem would be bland and boring. The experiences of the speaker start off with Dan drowning the kittens but don’t stop there. He witnesses the death of lots of animals and wonders why this has to happen. This builds up an image of a young naive portrait of the speaker. ‘I was six when I first saw kittens drown…when Dan trapped big rats, snared rabbits, shot crows Or, with a sickening tug, pulled old hens' necks’ . Later in stanza 6 he seems to come to terms with the experiences and know why the deaths had to happen. This is a transformation from childhood to manhood and it is important because he has change from that young naive boy that thinks death is wrong, to this adult who relies that death is a necessity in life. ‘And now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown, I just shrug, 'Bloody pups'. It makes sense’ Another thing in the...