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Seamus HeaneyA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Heaney’s poem opens with a clear indication of time; the speaker’s weapon is introduced before his father, grandfather, or the idea of inheritance: “Between my finger and my thumb / The squat pen rests; snug as a gun” (Lines 1-2). “Digging” is, in essence, a poem about tools, and as the speaker moves through layers of memory in the poem, “digging” his way down his family line, Heaney uses those tools to establish a clear chain of inheritance, as well as to illustrate the effects the passage of time have on that inheritance. While the poem is firmly rooted in a particular place, Northern Ireland, the scene of the poem is in flux, moving backwards and forwards in time in a quintessentially Postmodern stream-of-consciousness style.
The speaker’s pen is like a “gun” (Line 2) in that he plans to use it as a weaponized tool. The pen sits in the writer’s hand between finger and thumb, a manner reminiscent of finger-to-trigger placement on a firearm. The use of the “gun” as the first image of the poem is multi-faceted and speaks both to the tensely-coiled Northern Irish Conflict and the violence of the late-20th century in general, as well as to the speaker’s personal intentions.
By Seamus Heaney
Act of Union
Act of Union
Seamus Heaney
Blackberry Picking
Blackberry Picking
Seamus Heaney
Death of a Naturalist
Death of a Naturalist
Seamus Heaney
Mid-Term Break
Mid-Term Break
Seamus Heaney
North
North
Seamus Heaney
Punishment
Punishment
Seamus Heaney
Scaffolding
Scaffolding
Seamus Heaney
Seeing Things
Seeing Things
Seamus Heaney
Terminus
Terminus
Seamus Heaney
Two Lorries
Two Lorries
Seamus Heaney
Whatever You Say, Say Nothing
Whatever You Say, Say Nothing
Seamus Heaney
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