Follower by Seamus Heaney
DP1 – Area of Exploration: Time and Space
Discover how Seamus Heaney's touching childhood memory explores the passage of time, the meaning of place, and the evolving relationship between father and son. Through vivid rural imagery and careful observation, you'll see how admiration transforms into understanding.
What You Will Learn
This lesson guides you through Heaney's masterful exploration of memory, identity, and change. By examining how the poet uses language, structure, and imagery, you'll develop a deeper appreciation for the relationship between personal experience and universal themes.
Time's Influence
Discover how time shapes relationships and understanding throughout the poem, revealing the inevitable passage from childhood admiration to adult awareness.
Space and Place
Explore how the Irish countryside and working fields reflect memory, skill, and identity, serving as both physical setting and emotional landscape.
Language Analysis
Learn how Heaney employs precise language and careful structure to convey admiration, growth, and the poignant reversal of roles between generations.
IB Connections
Connect the poem's themes directly to the Time and Space Area of Exploration, strengthening your analytical skills for assessment.
Starter: Thinking About Following
5–10 minutes
Before encountering Heaney's verse, pause to reflect on your own experiences with admiration and imitation. These personal connections will deepen your understanding of the poem's emotional resonance.
Consider moments when you've watched someone you admire at work. What feelings arose? What did you notice about their movements, their confidence, their mastery?
Reflection Question 1
Have you ever tried to imitate someone you deeply admire? What was that experience like?
Reflection Question 2
How does watching a skilled person work make you feel—inspired, inadequate, curious, or something else entirely?
You'll explore how the speaker follows his father both literally and emotionally, and how this following changes profoundly over the years.
Context Mini-Lecture
5 minutes
Understanding Heaney's background enriches your reading of "Follower." His poetry emerges from a specific time and place, rooted deeply in Irish rural tradition and family bonds.
Rural Irish Roots
Heaney grew up on a farm in rural County Derry, Northern Ireland, where agricultural life shaped his earliest memories and poetic vision.
Physical Labour & Tradition
Physical work, inherited tradition, and family bonds form the foundation of his childhood, providing rich material for his poetry.
Growth & Learning
Heaney's childhood memories often highlight themes of growth, respect, learning, and the complex passage from innocence to experience.
First Reading: Your Initial Response
10 minutes
Read the poem aloud or listen carefully to a recording. Poetry gains dimension through sound—notice the rhythm, the texture of words, the pauses and emphases.
Focus Your Attention On:
  • How the speaker feels about his father throughout the poem
  • What the countryside looks and feels like through Heaney's descriptions
  • Where you perceive admiration and struggle emerging
  • The physical details of ploughing and farming work

Activity
After reading, write down three words to describe the beginning of the poem and three more for the end. Notice any differences?
You'll notice a significant shift in tone and perspective between the opening and closing stanzas—this transformation lies at the heart of the poem's meaning.
Exploring Time in the Poem
10–15 minutes
Now focus specifically on how time operates within "Follower." The poem spans years, compressing childhood memory and adult reflection into a single narrative arc.
1
Childhood Beginning
The father appears strong, skilled, almost flawless—a figure of complete mastery and authority in the child's eyes.
2
The Child's Struggle
The young speaker stumbles and trips, unable to keep pace with his father's confident stride through the furrows.
3
Growing Independence
Time passes, bringing change and growth. The child develops his own path, his own capabilities and understanding.
4
Role Reversal
The father ages, and roles reverse—now it is the father who follows, stumbling behind the speaker.
Key Insight
This progression demonstrates how time fundamentally changes relationships and understanding. What begins as simple admiration matures into complex awareness of human frailty and the inevitable passage of generations.
Exploring Space in the Poem
10–15 minutes
Turn your attention to space and place. The fields aren't merely backdrop—they're active participants in the poem's meaning, carrying symbolic weight and emotional significance.
Consider These Questions:
  • How does the countryside reflect the father's extraordinary skill and knowledge?
  • What does the physical space of the fields represent beyond agricultural work?
  • How does spatial meaning shift as the speaker matures?
Place of Work & Skill
The fields serve as a stage for demonstrating mastery. The father's expert ploughing—"clicking tongue," "shafts," "furrow exactly"—reveals deep knowledge earned through years of practice.
Tradition & Identity
These working fields represent family tradition and Irish rural identity, connecting generations through shared labour and inherited ways of life.
Shifting Emotional Landscape
The physical space remains constant, but its emotional meaning transforms. What once inspired awe later evokes nostalgia, understanding, and perhaps regret.
Thematic Reflection: Growth and Role Reversal
"Follower" transcends its agricultural setting to explore universal human experiences. Beneath the specific details of ploughing and farming lies a meditation on time, change, and the complex bonds between parents and children.
Childhood Admiration
Uncomplicated worship of parental strength
Growing Awareness
Recognition of complexity and human limitation
Temporary Nature
Understanding that strength and skill are fleeting
Role Reversal
The painful yet natural shift in generational positions
Emotional Maturity
Acceptance of life's inevitable changes
"Time changes both people and the meaning of places. What remains constant is the connection between memory, identity, and the landscapes that shape us."
Reflection / Exit Task
10 minutes
Consolidate your understanding by completing one of these reflective writing tasks. Use specific textual evidence to support your analysis, demonstrating close reading skills essential for IB English assessment.
Option A: Time & Relationship
Write a paragraph (75–100 words) explaining how time affects the relationship between father and child in "Follower."
  • Identify specific shifts in the speaker's perspective
  • Quote key lines that reveal changing attitudes
  • Discuss the final stanza's ironic reversal
  • Connect to the broader theme of generational change
Option B: Setting & Identity
Write a paragraph (75–100 words) explaining how the setting—fields, countryside, the act of ploughing—connects to memory and identity.
  • Analyse how Heaney describes the physical space
  • Explore what the fields represent symbolically
  • Consider how place shapes the speaker's sense of self
  • Discuss the relationship between landscape and tradition
Key Takeaway
Essential Understanding
In "Follower," you discover how time and place work together to illuminate admiration, growth, and the evolving meaning of family relationships.
Heaney's poem demonstrates the power of memory to capture not just what happened, but how our understanding deepens over time. The Irish countryside becomes more than setting—it's a repository of skill, tradition, and identity.
Area of Exploration
You've examined Time and Space as they operate in literature, seeing how physical and temporal dimensions create meaning.
Analytical Skills
You've practised close reading, identifying how language choices and structure support thematic development.
Universal Themes
You've connected specific details to universal experiences of family, ageing, and the passage of time.