Throughout this semester there have been plenty of connections between this class and other classes that I have. Recently we studied a poem in American/British Contemporary Literature by Seamus Heaney called "Punishment."


"I can see her drowned

body in the bog,

the weighing stone,

the floating rods and boughs.

Under which at first

she was a barked sapling

that is dug up

oak-bone, brain-firkin:

her shaved head

like a stubble of black corn,

her blindfold a soiled bandage,

her noose a ring

to store

the memories of love.



Although gruesome, the poem is a reminder of past treatment towards women. The woman Heaney writes about is one out of numerous amounts of women who were hanged and thrown in the bogs of Ireland for adultery or other similar crimes. Although at the time women's thoughts and feelings weren't considered, Heaney writes this woman's story and gives her a name and a mind, he says, "her noose a ring to store the memories of love." No longer is this woman's life meaningless, by writing this poem Heaney gives her a higher purpose. Heaney suggest that the noose not only contains the memories of this certain woman, but all the forgotten women who were tortured and killed. I was trying to make the connection that if the noose contains her memories then the noose is her memory palace, thus memory palaces are deadly. No, not really, but it is interesting to think about.