Mid-Term Break & Refugee Mother and Child
... Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow’ and the neighbours all sharing in the families pain, we are touched by the contrast between the two poems, seeing one child die unnoticed by all except its mother, and one child die and the whole neighbourhood share in the tragedy. In ‘Refugee Mother and Child’ the death is robbed of its dignity by the graphic descriptions and language used, while in ‘Mid-Term Break’ the deaths tragedy is conveyed all the more by the grief of the people in it, and the broken sound of the account. In ‘Mid-Term Break’, the poet suffers greatly telling the tale, through his language and detail, we can see that he remembers the event vividly, from personal experience. However in ‘Refugee Mother and Child’, we see the mothers grief for a ‘son she would soon have to forget.’ We see that she loves her son, but that in her situation, in her place, getting over his death must happen for her own survival. In contrast, a family in a comfortable situation, in western society, remembers the brother of Seamus Heaney forever. This makes both deaths tragic, as the two extremes are both unhealthy. To never get over the grief of your brother or son is just as bad as forgetting him altogether. Set in a nice neighbourhood, in affluent society, the loss of a child is poignant and unexpected in the time and place that it occurs. Set in a refugee camp, the loss of a child is only the norm, and nothing special. This ‘regular’ occurrence is tragic in that children are supposed to be the future, and if we can accept the loss of one so easily, what of ten? Or a hundred? And yet, placing a child who is loved in this situation hits home even harder in that while other mothers have forgotten, this one will not. Should not an unloved child be sacrificed for a loved one? Is his life not more valuable? And then in ‘Mid-Term Break’, we see a child that no one expected to die, dead. Is this right? Why should a child with all the opportunities die, when children in refugee camps who will never get anywhere...