10.1.3

Quotes and Comparisons

Test yourself

Key Quotes in Follower

Here are some examples of key quotes from Seamus Heaney's Follower:

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'All I ever did was follow

  • 'All I ever did was follow / In his broad shadow round the farm’.
    • This shows both the narrator's childhood awe of his father (his 'broad shadow') and his own feels of inadequacy ('All I ever did was follow').
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'Keeps stumbling...'

  • 'But today / It is my father who keeps stumbling / Behind me, and will not go away.’
    • As the poem ends we see how the roles of parent and child have reversed as the child grows up.
    • Whereas before, the narrator 'stumbled' in his father's wake, now the old man is 'stumbling' behind him.
    • The final line, stating that his father ‘will not go away’, gives a sense that he is almost haunted by his father.

Key Comparisons with Follower

Here are some suggestions for poems you could compare Follower to. Remember, there are endless options!

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Walking Away/Mother, Any Distance

  • All explore parent-child relationships.
  • You could compare the sense of poignancy created when looking to the past.
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Before You Were Mine

  • Compare the narrators' longing to be more like their parents or to know them more deeply.

Jump to other topics

1When We Two Parted - Lord Byron (1788-1824)

2Love’s Philosophy - Percy Bysshe Shelley

3Porphyria’s Lover - Robert Browning (1812-1889)

4Sonnet 29 - Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

4.1Sonnet 29 – ‘I think of thee!’ Analysis

5Neutral Tones - Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

6Letters from Yorkshire - Maura Dooley (Born 1957)

7The Farmer’s Bride - Charlotte Mew (1869-1928)

8Walking Away - Cecil Day Lewis (1904-1972)

9Eden Rock - Charles Causley (1917-2003)

10Follower - Seamus Heaney (1939-2013)

11‘Mother, Any Distance’ - Simon Armitage (Born1963

12Before You Were Mine - Carol Ann Duffy (Born 1955)

13Winter Swans - Owen Sheers (Born 1974)

14Singh Song! - Daljit Nagra (Born 1966)

15Climbing My Grandfather - Andrew Waterhouse

16Grade 9 - Comparisons

16.1Grade 9 - Comparisons

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