Seamus Heaney "Station Island"
1) In "Station Island," Seamus Heaney is confronted by a series of ghosts. Chose one section from Station Island and do a close reading of the presence of a particular spectre. What does the ghost say? What is Heaney's reaction? What is the significance of "the haunting" in that section? Remember from your handout what Avery Gordon says about "haunting" and the way in which they are instances "when home becomes unfamiliar, when your bearings on the world lose direction, when the over-and-done-with comes alive, when what's been in your blind spot comes into view" (from Ghostly Matters xvi). How would you describe the particular nature of the "haunting" in that section?
2) In the same handout, Jacques Derrida discusses how living with the ghost can be a sort of "being-with the other...and this being-with specters would also be, not only but also, a politics of memory, of inheritance, and of generations" (from Specters of Marx xviii-xix). What does Derrida mean by this statment and how do you see this idea of "being-with" playing out thematically within "Station Island"? Could we extend this reading of Derrida and "Station Island" to the nature of "The Troubles" in Ireland?
3) In the final section of "Station Island," Heaney meets with the ghost of James Joyce. What does Joyce tell Heaney? Do you agree with Heaney's final conclusions?
By: Kate Bruegmann
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning of Station Island, it said it started on Sunday. The man in this poem felt as if he can see again the war that had happened as if it was yesterday. The way the war made him felt it will never forget, and still has those feelings of being on alert. I think this is exactly how the Irish men felt in the movie we just watched. The narrator said, “You shut your eyes and saw a wet axle and spokes in the moonlight.” (62)It shows a great example of what happened. But then again is he the man of the other side, looking in on the Irish men and was the man who caused all the pain and grief for them. Another statement that is said, “You sensed my trail there as if it had been sprayed. It left you half afraid.” (62) That could go both ways because, in the movie, the Irish men took charge in the war right before the two countries signed the treaty. On the other hand, the narrator stated, “Bare-breasted women and rat-ribbed men. Everything wasted. I rotted like a pear. I sweated masses.” (69) There that states to me that his family was starving to death, which that occurred towards the poor Irish families more the rich. The man then died from starvation, and there was nothing his family could do for him. The Irish people were trapped because they were over powered. Even though this nasty war was happening, the Irish people still knew how to keep their charm and romanticism for the women they adored. As mentioned, “Until that night I saw her honey-skinned shoulder blades and the wheatlands of her back, and a window facing the deep south of luck opened and I inhaled the land of kindness.” The narrator must have shown his true self even in the worst of times.