Dig for the Present

Digging


Culture is an important aspect of our lives. We have to remember were we came from and who our ancestors are. Our roots tell who we are and what our strengths and characteristics are but it does not tell what we are capable of or what will become of us. For example, I am a daughter of Mexican immigrants who was born and raised in an economically challenged neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles. For most people I was not destined to succeed what they saw in me was a young Latina without a future. “She might end up pregnant at 16 with no high school diploma and no one to care for her and her baby,” that is what most people would think. That is not the case, I am here at UC Davis and I have accomplished a lot. I managed to get in a prestigious high school and graduate. I have a lot of experience under my belt and I have a lot of goals to fulfill. I come from a strong race with strong will.
In Heaney’s poem “Digging” he is exploring his ancestry and the roots from where he
was brought up. This is a poem memorial to those who came before him and it is also a new form of oral tradition. Oral tradition is a way to transmit mostly history and literature, across generations without a writing system. Nowadays, the most eminent way of communication of culture and stories is written tradition. What he wants to do is use his pen to write the stories of his ancestors. He wants to “dig” up all the stories of his ancestors. Although he is no longer able to follow the family’s tradition to be potato farmers he is creating a new, better way to follow the family’s legacy.
Heaney uses a lot of figurative language in his poem to illustrate his view. He uses figurative language such as simile, metaphor, alliteration, and he also switches verb tenses to create an appeal to our senses like sounds, sight, touch, smell and taste. We can smell the potato mould and we can hear the squelch and slap Of soggy peat.

In the first stanza Heaney’s uses a strong similie in where he describes the pen snug as a gun.
”Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.”
In the next stanza:
“Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down”
He uses alliteration and assonance to point out the harshness of the type of work his father does without actually saying he is digging. The words gravelly, ground, sound, and down all contain alliteration and assonance.
He uses personification in the second to last stanza to describe his family roots awakening in his head. Something inanimate as his families roots are awakened by his writing and remembering.
“The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.”
The last stanza, he switches tenses from present to future progressive tense which “describes an action that will occur in the future before some other action. This tense is formed by using will have with the past participle of the verb.” (http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/grammar/tenses.html)
“I’ll dig with it.”
I feel that this is a very strong quote that illustrates his will power and desire to keep on his family’s legacy.

Heaney does a magnificent job at communicating his ideas. My image is perfect and it only enhances what is he is stating in writing.