Quotes and Comparisons
English Lit: AQA GCSE Poetry - Love & Relationships, topic 10.1.3
Key Quotes in Follower
Here are some examples of key quotes from Seamus Heaney's Follower:
'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').
'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!
Walking Away/Mother, Any Distance
- All explore parent-child relationships.
- You could compare the sense of poignancy created when looking to the past.
Before You Were Mine
- Compare the narrators' longing to be more like their parents or to know them more deeply.
Test yourself on Quotes and Comparisons
In which other poem does the narrator long to know their parent more deeply?