Commentary Wedding Day

Commentary : “Wedding Day”        

The poem “Wedding Day”, is written by Seamus Heaney where he talks about his feelings regarding his wedding day as well as the feelings of his bride and their guests. Seamus Heaney uses literary devices like caesura, organic imagery and specific tone and diction to express his message.

        A wedding day is supposed to be one of the happiest days for any person, but through his diction, Heaney suggests otherwise. On the surface, the poem talks about how stressful and sad the wedding day is for the narrator, his bride and their guests. He uses words like “tears”, “grief”, and “mourning” to create an atmosphere of sadness. In the first stanza the narrator says “I am afraid.” which points that he is in a state of being shocked due to being photographed over and over again. In the second stanza the narrator could possibly be talking about his own father or the bride’s father. The father has been struck by “grief”, and the guests are “mourning” as well. There is a taxi outside, which could mean that the narrator and the bride will be going to the airport after their wedding. The third stanza is entirely about the bride and how even though she feels detached from the wedding, she “goes through the rituals”. In the final stanza the narrator uses the washroom and finds a drawing or a picture of a skewered heart which represents love in its entirety. The narrator ends the poem by telling his audience of his desire to sleep on his bride’s breast on their way to the airport. Figuratively, the narrator’s wedding day is a day after which his bride and the narrator himself embark on a new journey, which is indicated when he tells his audience that they are on their way to the airport. The father and the guests are crying because they are probably not going to see the narrator and his bride for a long time. Moreover, the end of the poem where the narrator states that he wants to sleep on his wife’s breast indicates that she will act as a motherly figure to the narrator, providing him with strength and comfort.

        Heaney’s use of literary devices help express his feelings of the situation. His use of Caesura enables us to think of his current situation as very realistic and the pause help us understand what he and the people around him are going through. His use of a comma right after “persists” indicates the strength of the brides character as she continues despite such difficulty. He also uses a period in the last stanza right after “love”, this is done to make the audience sympathize with the narrator. He also uses a simile when he describes his bride while she is a singing behind the tall cake, “like a deserted bride”. Diction like “tears”, “grief”, and “mourning” are all examples of organic imagery which is a literary device that makes the audience feel exactly like the narrator.