Sophie Lynne Creations

Seamus Heaney’s poem “Casualty” touches on an array of themes, including death, connection, tragedy, nature, and guilt. His one-word title summates and dramatizes his contemplation of a fisherman that follows. This word, “casualty,” can notably apply to a person killed in war or in an accident. Accidents, by their very nature, work to remove the attribution of blame to any party. Heaney goes on to ponder this topic of blame extensively, as the speaker considers the death of this fisherman. Ruminating also, though, on the overall character of the fisherman, the speaker seems to waver between admiration and confusion. He hedges his affection by interweaving subtle criticisms of the fisherman amid an elegy that may seem wholly complimentary upon first glance. There is a tone of fascination present as the speaker seems simply puzzled about this fisherman. This fascinated tone matches one that many assume when observing an animal, say, a fish. A concept familiar to Heaney as he ponders oysters, badgers, otters, and skunks, the speaker creates a parallel between the fisherman and a fish. Using the diction to match, the speaker’s puzzled attitude houses both admiration and criticism that oscillate throughout the course of the poem.

Positive attitudes towards the fisherman stand out most apparently, the speaker signposting them most blatantly. He creates a backdrop of reverence in remarks such as, “I loved his whole manner” and “a natural for work” (Heaney 13). The speaker highlights the man’s “quick eye” and “turned observant back,” praising his awareness and sense of his surroundings (Heaney 13). There was something unique about this fisherman that kept the speaker’s eyes drawn to him, as he even found his “deadpan” mannerisms endearing (Heaney 13). The speaker described their relationship as comforting, intellectually stimulating, genuine, and yet diplomatic. They did seem to be close, and yet a sense of distance can be found slipped in between them as their conversations were “always politic / And shy of condescension” (Heaney 13). The distance between them is not unlike the gap between two different species. This fascination of the other manifests itself in the words, “Incomprehensible / To him, my other life” (Heaney 13). The speaker continues dispersedly to strengthen the parallel of the fisherman to a fish with the phrases, “… he would not be held / At home by his own crowd,” “…he drank like a fish,” “I tasted freedom with him,” and “…your proper haunt / Somewhere, well out, beyond…” (Heaney 14-16). These images encompass a sense of primal adventure, as readers are pulled to picture a vast sea as the “beyond.”

Diction dispersed through other parts of the poem supports this theory, as readers see words like “swimming,” “mesh” (the material of fishing nets), and “shoaling” (Heaney 15). The speaker felt different from the fisherman, and yet found awe within this difference. The poem ends with a request to the fisherman. Referring to him first as a “revenant,” the speaker pleads, “Plodder through midnight rain / Question me again” (Heaney 16). The speaker misses the way the man used to question him, an allusion to the last four lines of the second section. Heaney implies it is oftentimes through absence that admiration is solidified. Hence, readers begin to understand the speaker’s exploration of this overlap between fondness and judgment. This overlap comes to be known as puzzled fascination.

The likening of the fisherman to a fish can be seen even more clearly through the speaker’s insinuated negative attitudes towards the man. The speaker spends a notable portion of the poem grappling with the fisherman’s culpability in his own death. A confused tone paints the fisherman’s behavior as slightly ignorant and foolish. A fish is smart in many ways, and yet ultimately ends up biting a wormed hook that leads to its demise. The speaker respects the fisherman and yet points out that the man ignored a curfew and traveled miles to drink, leading to his own demise. “Whatever black flags waved,” the fisherman ignored them, ultimately trading a night of drinking for his life (Heaney 14). Although it might be tempting to label this deviance as independence, the speaker instead hints at a weak-willed nature of the fisherman. He describes the fisherman “swimming towards the lure / Of warm lit-up places” (Heaney 15). The fact that the fisherman was “lured” suggests an inherent ignorance, that he was fooled or that his temptations got the best of him. The speaker gingerly denounces the fisherman’s dependency on the blurring effect of alcohol. Picturing the fisherman’s face as the pub was bombed, the speaker says he sees remorse. This word is interesting because it suggests deep regret and guilt, emotions that would require some level of accountability for what transpires. Another word that helps place tentative blame on the fisherman is “own” when the speaker specifies “…he would not be held / At home by his own crowd” (Heaney 14). This word indicates that these people (presumably other Irish Catholics) likely had the fisherman’s best interest in mind in creating the curfew. The fisherman was individualistic, but the speaker wonders if he was so to a fault. I use this word “wonders” explicitly to highlight the indecisiveness present as the speaker considers the fisherman’s appropriate level of guilt.

Counterbalancing other previous compliments, additional traces of criticism may be found throughout the poem. The fisherman was “too busy with his knife / At a tobacco plug / And not meeting my eye,” the speaker notes (Heaney 13). Here, the fisherman again chooses a substance over a strengthened human connection. Additionally, the speaker alludes to potential insensitivity on the fisherman’s part when he points out that he was out drinking “three nights / After they shot dead / The thirteen men in Derry” (Heaney 14). The speaker never directly condemns the fisherman’s character, and yet by including certain details of his actions, readers pick up on the behavior that the speaker questions. This contributes to his oscillation of attitude towards the fisherman.
Although the speaker does not arrive at a strong conclusion in terms of his feelings towards the fisherman, the fisherman did have a profound effect on the speaker. Interestingly, the speaker mentions “I missed his funeral” in an unapologetic, matter-of-fact way, similar to the fisherman’s “deadpan sidling tact” (Heaney 15,13). Providing no explanation as to why he missed it, his actions against the suggested status quo remind readers of the fisherman. As others all swam with the current, the speaker may have been trying to swim against the tide of normalcy as perhaps an homage to the fisherman. At the end of the poem, the speaker’s sentiments resolve in a peaceful sadness regarding the passing of the fisherman. He says the fisherman “[got] out early” and will “find a rhythm / Working [him], slow mile by mile / Into [his] proper haunt” (Heaney 16). By getting out “early,” the speaker addresses the harsh reality that all people will die eventually, so the fisherman merely did so ahead of others. The speaker finds solace in the image of the fisherman returning to the sea, smiling, and being rocked by the cadence of the waves.

The poem, as a whole, feels exhaustingly perplexed with this fisherman. Surrounding discussions of his character with talk of politics and larger-scale death, the speaker presents conflicting feelings towards this fisherman. He admires his independence, diligence, observance, and inquisitiveness. He subtly criticizes the strength of his will, his insensitivity, his stubbornness, and his absent-mindedness. The combination of these positive and negative attitudes create a tone of confused fascination that is carried throughout the entirety of the piece. The fisherman’s intelligence mixed with his conspicuous foolishness supports a comparison to a fish that the speaker plays with throughout the poem. He uses other diction and imagery to bolster this metaphor. Relentlessly juggling feelings of affection and judgment, the speaker toys with removing some of the blame from the fisherman at the very end of the poem. He ponders if, like a fish, it is simply in the fisherman’s instinctual nature to want to swim out into the unknown.