I really enjoyed this poem because I believe the theme about the poem is the effects of time. The old man, well he considered himself old, just stands watching the younger people enjoy the night while he is alone in his room. It brings of an image of a person reflecting back to the time when they were young and when they had such a good time partying with their friends. And now the man thinks because he's has gotten older, he is denied the part of going out and having fun. This poem is the first poem where I could visually see the story and the plot that the author is trying to convey. "A girl in a white dress / Was being courted out among the cars" (Heaney 20). I image seeing a pretty girl in a white dress with her make up on being "hit on" by some guy. And I can just imaged the man watching and just thinking that she is pretty and he would love to try to flirt with her, but he feels now that it would be impossible for him to do that. The poem to me shows the seperation and the disconnect a person might feel emotionally and in their thinking when they compare themselves to the younger generation of themselves. At that moment while he is watching the youth enjoying the night I believe the man has a realization that he is no longer one of them.
Avan, good reading of this poem. And what makes this poem work, also, i think, is knowing that when Heaney wrote this, he was not old, by any stretch of the imagination. He was in his 30s -- which is old when you compare it to the kids in the parking lot, but it's not old in the grand scheme of things. Yet there is that feeling of loss and sadness for what has been and what could be ...
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