The body of the woman is described as something almost ghastly and hideous, but still maintaining its beauty and dignity. It seems vain to saybeauty is only attainable through suffering?, though through the political and very personal message in Heaney's poems, the suffering and blood spilt only feeds the generations of rebellions, of patriotism in regaining their freedom. The fermentation of the corpse assures that it will never disappear, yet builds up and made much stronger, again for the future generations of fighters for freedom. This concept is also mentioned in Heaney's poem, Requiem for the Croppies where he tells the tale of a massacre of rebels, symbolically seen as martyrs. The corpses of these rebels were buried bare into the earth; with nothing on them apart from their clothes and pocketfuls of barley- what they ate to sustain life for the day of the rebellion. This shows the state of poverty the Irish were in.And in August the barley grew up out of the grave? Theand? here shows there is a pattern of martyr and a cycle of rebellion. The martyrs only become symbolic by dying and their deaths generate, with thegrowing barley?, the nationalism in civilians. Here we see Seamus Heaney reflecting on himself as a patriot, fully seeing and understanding the sacrifices made by his earlier generations for the freedom of the Irish people. The Bog Queen rises in ugliness, having suffered so much that she can never be beautiful again, just as Ireland has been cut off from its own good. Through his poem Digging, Heaney talks about the harvesting of potatoes, with reference to the dark famine stage during Irish history, again reflecting on his country and origins, helping form the person that he is.
Heaney also tries to justify the ruthless of human nature by saying it is something uncontrollable. He mentions the frontiers of humanity in possessions asdemesne walls? (Bog Queen). Through this, he expresses his considered opinion on the negativity of the idea ofproperty? of man leading to the sufferance of civilians as an outcome to political rampage.