Zusammenfassung der Ressource
The Summer of Lost Rachel
- Structure
- It has a 9 quatrain structure. littered with
enjambment across both lines and stanzas
- The rhyme scheme is quite loose
with some half rhymes
- The enjmabment creates a steady flow and
quickens the pace of the poem, refleccting grief
- The fluid nature created by the
enjambment is interupted by the
short, ture line at the end of stanza
2, "There's a ring around the moon"
- Pattern of long, run-on verses continues
for the next five stanzas
- There is a structural change in the last two
stanzas which use full rhyme, The short, dramatic
"but no" draws our attention to this shift
- The use of full rhyme injects a
sense of finaltiy into Rachel's death
- The poem's structure refl=ects the five stages of grief
- The closing lines of the poem act as an epiphany like
conclusion that Heaney must accept Rachel's death but
not let her be forgotten
- Theme
- The main theme of this poem are grief, anguish and
regret. In many ways it acts as a tribute to the girl
- Content
- Language
- Tone
- There is an underlying tone of
remorse and bitterness at how the
natural world continues to flourish
and thrive.
- Heaney agonises over the fact
that his neice lost her life that is
meant to bestow life
- Heaney conveys an eternal
sense of distrust in the season
of summer from here on as it
is when Rachel died
- Tones of regret, wistfulness and longing
permeate stazas 6 and 7 as Heaney and his
family earn to have Rachel back. In these
stanzas Heaney recounts more of the actual
accident
- Technique
- Meatphiorical langauge
- The "ring" is suggestive of a halo but
also adds an ominous note of
foreshadowing- bad times are coming
- Heaney employs the metaphor of a
film to stress his desire to rewind/
turn back time
- Onomatopoeia
- Use of onomatopoeia further intensifies
Heaney's exasperationat the season which
continues to provide life and growth.
- Repitition
- "Flooded"/ "flooding" shows how thw
natural world is saturated with life giving
rain
- Repeated referance to white
concerning Rachel gives a ghostly
appearance- poignant and sad- the
colour white also reminds us of her
innocnece and young age
- Juxtaposition
- Rachel is presented in strong
contrast to the accident which
killed her
- Alliteration
- "Safe adn sound" highlights the futile desire
to have everything back to normal
- Visual imagery, alliteration and
repeated consonance sounds repeated
to capture the vibrancy of the poem
- The plosive quality of the word "plout"augments
Heaney's anger as it creates the impression that
he is spitting out the words
- Imagery
- The prolific imagery in stanzas one and
two is incongruous to the theme of
seath which prevades the poem.
- Heaney's use of haunting imagery conveys the
devastation the whol family faced at the death of
Rachel. The term "broke down" indirectly conveys the impact of greif on the family
- Heaney creates a memorable
image of Rachel in death by
emphasising "still" and "mercy"
- Refernces to the bright rimmed bike remind us once again
of her youth and radience and her vibrancy- this reminds
us of the similar descriptions of summer
- Heaney captures his descriptions in the physical sense of her death- he juxtaposes the twisted spokes of the wheels with "straightened out" to emphasise the
- "We" gives a sense of
personalistation through the use of
various pronouns as Heaney
appears to address Rachel directly
- Langauge and imagery creates
a sense of abundance and plenty
in the natural world. The imagery
is vebrant and sensual
- We see the fagility of
humans when they are faced
with extreme grief