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ENG 102 Research Paper

Dr. Karlyn Koh
7th June, 2016
Punishment
Punishment is the authoritative imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome
upon a group or individual, in response to a particular action or behavior that is deemed
unacceptable or threatening to some norm (wikipedia.org). I believe that punishing someone is
to let the one know he/she doing the wrong thing, should follow the rules, and make or set an
example for the other people to not do the same mistake. There are some people who still carry
out the outrages punishment to this modern world even though the time era had been changed. I
never knew that loving someone is a crime and can be killed but I do know that love is not only
about the sweetness and happy ending but also meshing with bitter and sacrifices. In the poem,
Punishment written by an Irish poet, Seamus Heaney illustrates how still resemblances of
modern era Irishs punishment and past Iron age history of punishing the women who were in
love with the men of enemies.
Seamus Heaney was a Northern Ireland born Noble prize winner Irish poet. Heaney grew
up in the.... The Punishment is part of a series of The Bog People which is based on P.V.
Globes 1969 book. He got an inspiration to write this poem by seeing the Iron Age people
whose preserved bodies were discovered in the bogs and the way the Irish Catholic women who
dated British soldiers were punished savagely (footnote).

In the poem, by picturing the punishment of Irish Catholic women who dated British
(Protestant) soldiers Heaney try to expose the roots of myths violent reason base on religions
and cultures. He compares the women from the bog with the Irish women by calling betraying
sister (38). They were punished for the same reason which was in love with the men of enemy.
In the scholar essay Daniel Tobin discuss how the poet, Heaney put himself as a man who had a
relationship with the victim girl but couldnt help. The girl was humiliated and abused by the
villagers because she was in love with the man from Protestant British soldier which made her
betray of her own religion and tribe. She was sacrificed her life for the love and took in all the
brutal ritual of poets own Catholic tribe makes the poet to pathos her more (15). In the poem, the
poet pictures of the bog women how they was brutally punished, I who stood dumb /when your
betraying sisters, /cauled in tar, /wept by the railings,, their bodies were covered with tar and
dragged with rope through the railings (37-40). The poet revile how he is speechless and mute
when he saw the woman he love was punished.
Heaney illustrates his contradictory feeling of the punishment for the woman. I almost
love you /But would have cast, I know, /the stones of silence, /I am the artful voyeur, the poet
describing himself as a distance observer of her beauty in silence (29-32). We can see that even
though how the poet have a feeling for the woman he has to follow the rule of his tribe and
culture to be civilized man.
I believe that punishment is necessary to make things to be right, to stop doing the same
mistakes and set the example of cause and effect of breaking the laws. Even though punishments
are set by the justice people to make the society to be more civilized, sometimes it turns out to be
an atrocious manners if they use us a power to control something. In the scholar essay, Tobin
discuss how the poet juxtapose about the way the bog people and Irish people punish to the

women. Tobin describes the some lines from the poem are an allusions from the Bible verses,
Leviticus, the scapegoat as an offering for the sins of the community, the Christs intercession to
the adulterous women and the crucifixion of Christ (16). Heaney portrays the punishment of the

In the scholar essay Daniel Tobin discuss about how the punishment savages and drastically than
the poem does. People are thinking that they are civilized people who set the rule and giving
inhumane punishments. Heaney describes the way the bog women were punishment

Their brutality of human sacrificing is way outrageous.