Digging the Path to Individual Success

Dear blog welcome back, 

Apologies for the lateness. I was too busy digging into the poem Digging by Seamus Heaney. Through close reading in connection to the idea of what success looks like, we see the speaker highlight his father and grandfather's success as opposed to his mentioned at the beginning and end of the poem. 

The vivid diction used by Heaney creates a visual of agricultural success with potatoes, a generational one, as the speaker hones in on the passion of his grandfather and now witnesses his father having the same passion of “Stooping in rhythm through potato drills. Where he was digging” (8,9). To the reader, it is known that the idea of success comes from their pride in the action of digging and the labor that goes into their potato business. 

In the Digging, this is emphasized when the speaker says, “By God, the old man could handle a spade. Just like his old man” (15, 16). In unfolding this poem, the beginning and ending stanzas convey the disconnect the speaker has with their father and grandfather's idea of success when the speaker says, “Between my finger and my thumb The squat pen rests. I’ll dig with it” (29, 31). The speaker's idea of success rests within the pen he holds close to him, as opposed to his father and grandfather holding the action of digging close to them. The speaker makes it known that everyone’s idea of success is different, and there is the idea of contentment with their success being different because, with the pen the speaker sees success in, he will dig with that. 

This idea resonates and can be applied to all life experiences, but especially with success, one's approach to success will always be different from another's. No one will approach or achieve success in the same way, as everyone’s journey to it is different as well as the work ethic put into it. In connection to the poem, the father and grandfather's success was found through the hard work of digging in the land, but the speaker's success was found through the digging with simply their pen. 

Overall success is what you make it; in the poem, the reader can conclude and take away that personal success is ultimately found just through different methods for everyone, which are applied daily in life. You define your own success in your own way with your own work ethic not anyone else’s. You dig your own pathway to what success looks like to you, and you keep digging until you finally discover it.