Out of the Bag - Seamus Heaney
Stanza Quotation Theme Analysis Device
/Line
MISSING FIRST 3 STANZAS
3/2-3 ‘like a hypnotist/ Control over life and death.
Unwinding us’ Umbilical cord
4/1 ‘their lining’ Slight personification of
instruments
4/1 ‘tie the cloth’ Material
4/2 ‘apron’ Like a butcher or a mother
4/3 ‘Darken the door’ Ominous elements to the poem.
Almost seems like having a child
brings bad luck. Marking the doors
with blood in the Bible
4/3 ‘leave’ Stanza break enacts how he leaves
5/1 ‘plump’ Could refer to the
mother/baby/bag
5/1 ‘ark’ Like a Noah’s ark symbol of
fertility. Narrator still thinks the
baby comes from the bag
5/2 ‘Until the next time They know that he will come back.
came’ Like the vision of exhausted
women repeatedly giving birth in
The Deliverer
5/2 ‘next time came 2 tenses of ‘to come’ shows
and in he’d come’ passage of time
5/3 ‘fur-lined collar’ Luxurious. Dead animals like in The
Gun.
5/3 ‘spaniel-coloured’ Umbilical cord of hyphen
6/1 ‘stooping up’ Giant figure
6/1-2 ‘a whiff/ Of Olfactory imagery. A play upon the
disinfectant’ phrase ‘a whiff of cologne’.
Dehumanises the doctor but also
makes him seem upper class.
Cleansing imagery in poem
6/2 ‘Dutch interior Dutch interior - painting by Miró
gleam’
6/3 ‘forceps’ Memento mori. The harshness
contrasts with ‘fur’ and ‘satin’.
Suggests violence
7/1 ‘that was next’ Ritualistic
7/2 ‘plumping hot’ Plosive sounds show bubbling
water
7/2-3 ‘soft,/ Sud- Sensual
luscious’
, 7/3 ‘rain-butt’ Rural
7/2 ‘saved’ Shift in ‘saved’ to ‘savoured’.
8/1 ‘savoured’ Elevation of doctor
7/2 ‘hard and fast’ Clinical
8/1 ‘squired’ Social status
8/1 ‘silk-lined into the Penetration imagery. The sexual
camel coat’ imagery is subtle because Ireland is
a Catholic conservative country
and sex cannot be openly spoken
about. Alternatively, the narrator is
still too young to properly
understand what sex is.
8/1 ‘camel’ Exotic mythical east.
8/2 ‘he once turned his ‘Once’ implies that it is an
eyes upon me’ important, one-off moment. Brings
to mind Basilisks, Gorgons
8/3 ‘Hyperborean, An imaginary place in Ancient
beyond-the-north- Greece called Hyborea? A
wind blue’ beautiful place, ‘beyond the
north’. Travelling to exotic places.
9/1 ‘peepholes’ Forbidden and out of reach.
Childhood imagery of spying.
Brings to mind the locked room in
Bluebeard’s castle or the
‘workshop of filthy creation’ and
‘midnight labours’ in Frankenstein.
9/3 ‘Milk and ice, Macabre. The clinical ‘white’
10/1 swabbed porcelain, imagery contrasts with the human
the white and chill warmth of ‘blood’
of tiles’
9/3 ‘Milk’ Mother’s milk
11/3 ‘A toe, a foot and Discombobulated body parts.
shin, an arm, a Opposite of Pentheus. Like a
cock’ butcher
11/3 ‘a cock’ Almost paraprosdokian. Contrasts
with the childhood narrative.
Climax of the stanza
12/1 ‘rosebud’ Subverts the stereotypical
romantic image of a rose.
Represents fertility as it is a flower,
but also shows a lack of fertility as
it has been cut. Potential growth is
stunted. Could represent the
narrator on the cusp of puberty?
13/1 ‘Poeta doctus’ Learned educated doctor. Use of
Latin suggests that the narrator has
matured and is now educated.
Stanza Quotation Theme Analysis Device
/Line
MISSING FIRST 3 STANZAS
3/2-3 ‘like a hypnotist/ Control over life and death.
Unwinding us’ Umbilical cord
4/1 ‘their lining’ Slight personification of
instruments
4/1 ‘tie the cloth’ Material
4/2 ‘apron’ Like a butcher or a mother
4/3 ‘Darken the door’ Ominous elements to the poem.
Almost seems like having a child
brings bad luck. Marking the doors
with blood in the Bible
4/3 ‘leave’ Stanza break enacts how he leaves
5/1 ‘plump’ Could refer to the
mother/baby/bag
5/1 ‘ark’ Like a Noah’s ark symbol of
fertility. Narrator still thinks the
baby comes from the bag
5/2 ‘Until the next time They know that he will come back.
came’ Like the vision of exhausted
women repeatedly giving birth in
The Deliverer
5/2 ‘next time came 2 tenses of ‘to come’ shows
and in he’d come’ passage of time
5/3 ‘fur-lined collar’ Luxurious. Dead animals like in The
Gun.
5/3 ‘spaniel-coloured’ Umbilical cord of hyphen
6/1 ‘stooping up’ Giant figure
6/1-2 ‘a whiff/ Of Olfactory imagery. A play upon the
disinfectant’ phrase ‘a whiff of cologne’.
Dehumanises the doctor but also
makes him seem upper class.
Cleansing imagery in poem
6/2 ‘Dutch interior Dutch interior - painting by Miró
gleam’
6/3 ‘forceps’ Memento mori. The harshness
contrasts with ‘fur’ and ‘satin’.
Suggests violence
7/1 ‘that was next’ Ritualistic
7/2 ‘plumping hot’ Plosive sounds show bubbling
water
7/2-3 ‘soft,/ Sud- Sensual
luscious’
, 7/3 ‘rain-butt’ Rural
7/2 ‘saved’ Shift in ‘saved’ to ‘savoured’.
8/1 ‘savoured’ Elevation of doctor
7/2 ‘hard and fast’ Clinical
8/1 ‘squired’ Social status
8/1 ‘silk-lined into the Penetration imagery. The sexual
camel coat’ imagery is subtle because Ireland is
a Catholic conservative country
and sex cannot be openly spoken
about. Alternatively, the narrator is
still too young to properly
understand what sex is.
8/1 ‘camel’ Exotic mythical east.
8/2 ‘he once turned his ‘Once’ implies that it is an
eyes upon me’ important, one-off moment. Brings
to mind Basilisks, Gorgons
8/3 ‘Hyperborean, An imaginary place in Ancient
beyond-the-north- Greece called Hyborea? A
wind blue’ beautiful place, ‘beyond the
north’. Travelling to exotic places.
9/1 ‘peepholes’ Forbidden and out of reach.
Childhood imagery of spying.
Brings to mind the locked room in
Bluebeard’s castle or the
‘workshop of filthy creation’ and
‘midnight labours’ in Frankenstein.
9/3 ‘Milk and ice, Macabre. The clinical ‘white’
10/1 swabbed porcelain, imagery contrasts with the human
the white and chill warmth of ‘blood’
of tiles’
9/3 ‘Milk’ Mother’s milk
11/3 ‘A toe, a foot and Discombobulated body parts.
shin, an arm, a Opposite of Pentheus. Like a
cock’ butcher
11/3 ‘a cock’ Almost paraprosdokian. Contrasts
with the childhood narrative.
Climax of the stanza
12/1 ‘rosebud’ Subverts the stereotypical
romantic image of a rose.
Represents fertility as it is a flower,
but also shows a lack of fertility as
it has been cut. Potential growth is
stunted. Could represent the
narrator on the cusp of puberty?
13/1 ‘Poeta doctus’ Learned educated doctor. Use of
Latin suggests that the narrator has
matured and is now educated.
