"Digging"

Seamus Heaney's poem "Digging" is about a person from a third generation. A person who has a father and a grandfather whose generations were potato farmers. They were both hard working, getting their hands dirty working the land. His grandfather started the hard working tradition. Heaney writes,"...He straightened up/To drink it, then fell to right away" (lines 20-21). This hard working ethic was also instilled in his father. His father also worked hard, which is supported in the quote,"Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds/Bends low, comes up twenty years away" (6-7). The third generation person respects his father and grandfather's hard work, but prefers to write and not dig in the soil. "But I've no spade to follow men like them" (28). His hard work is writing. He will work as hard as his grandfather and father, but not digging potatoes.