17 pages • 34 minutes read
Punishment
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Symbols & Motifs
The Bog Body
At the center of this poem is the bog body itself, described in gruesome detail for the audience by a voyeuristic speaker. The body is a symbol of cultural violence, particularly violence done to women, and the speaker’s reaction to the body—sexual and voyeuristic in its empathy—also perpetrates a type of violence upon the victim. The speaker describes the body as “little” (Line 27) and “undernourished” (Line 30), while also calling her “beautiful” (Line 31) and claiming to “almost love” (Line 33) her. The violence the body has taken, in life and death, is the focus of the poem, but the speaker’s affectionate description works to deceive the reader, making that violence itself seem beautiful and sexual in nature. The speaker’s description of the body is marked by reminders of the violence she has endured: “her shaved head / like a stubble of black corn, / her blindfold a soiled bandage, / her noose a ring” (Lines 17-20). Her body, preserved for centuries in the bog, becomes an immortalized monument to that fatal violence, which echoes in modern images of misogynistic punishments.
Tarring and Feathering
The poem’s title “Punishment” is reflected in multiple punishments as they appear in the poem. The most obvious punishment analyzed in the poem is that of the woman from the bog, who appears to have been choked or hung with a noose, as well as chronically undernourished from a lack of food or care. Her head is also described as shaved, which is often an example of a punishment for vanity or some sort of sexual deviance for women in ancient times. For the first verses of the poem, it seems as if the bog woman’s probable punishment is the focus of the poem, and she is the sole sufferer of the titular “Punishment.” However, this changes towards the end of the poem when Heaney states, “I who have stood dumb / when your betraying sisters, / cauled in tar, / wept by the railings” (Lines 37-40). Here, Heaney describes the tarring and feathering of Irish women who have allegedly slept with British soldiers. Tarring and feathering is a long-standing technique that has been used for hundreds of years as a cruel punishment for traitors or other social deviants.
The Ring of the Noose
One particular line in the poem describes the noose, or tied-off rope, around the bog body’s neck as “a ring” (Line 20). This choice of words is particularly unusual in that rings are worn as a mark of esteem or beauty. Rings often symbolize certain cultural values, such as chastity or marital promises between couples. By making the noose—the instrument which seems likely to have killed the woman who became the bog body—into a ring, Heaney creates a dark symbol with multiple meanings. The noose is a ring of violence around the neck of the woman, or around the neck of humanity, that cannot be escaped and is ever-connected. Making the noose a ring also inverts the typical meanings of both; the ring, a symbol for love, promises, and chastity, becomes the woman’s noose in life and leads her to her death. Similarly, the noose, described as a ring, implies that the only thing that can be promised to humankind is death.
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By Seamus Heaney
