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Comparison of Mid-Term Break, The Field Mouse, and On My First Sonne

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Comparison of Mid-Term Break, The Field Mouse, and On My First Sonne

The above poems are written by 3 different people and on reading them they seem to be about very different things. But at heart, they are about death and the pain that appears afterwards. Seamus Heaney's
Mid-Term Break is a memory of his four-year-old brother's death.
Gillian Clarke's The Field Mouse is about death in a political conflict compared to a death in nature. Finally On My First Sonne by
Ben Johnson is about the death of his son and the religious view of the situation.

Both Heaney and Johnson's poems are about the death of a close loved one and how it is dealt with emotionally and in reality. On looking at the title of Heaney's poem, you almost …show more content…

It also shows that his son was possibly the only bright point in his life and that he feels since he has been taken away, he has almost no reason to live. After this event he also feels that you shouldn't get to attached to something as he says 'As what he loves may never like too much.' This obviously means that whatever you love, don't get attached to it, as you will end up losing it.

Clarke, on the other hand, has a more general observation to death and tells it from the sort of view most people might have on war or conflict. Like Heaney's Mid-Term Break, when you see the title of
Clark's poem you assume that it will be a happy poem about a cute and cuddly mouse. This theory is almost exactly the opposite of what the poem is actually about. You can see that the poem is about the death and destruction in Bosnia War and compares it to the death and destruction that occurs while harvesting.

This poem again is a memory like Mid-Term Break, and at the end it shows her feeling and attitude towards war and violence. You can tell that her feelings are negative since she writes the line 'my neighbour turned stranger'. This I think means that people you once were good friends with would now become your enemy. So unlike the other 2 poems where it tells that death is a natural occurrence, this poem tells that a person's main enemy is another person that could possibly be your best friend.

In Johnson's poem you can tell he is a very religious

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