A final reversal shows the roles changing as the father ages and becomes the follower.
Follower by Seamus Heaney appears in the Songs of Ourselves, Volume 1 (Cambridge University Press), studied for IGCSE and International GCSE Literature (Cambridge International 0475). Your school confirms the anthology selection, and the board's current syllabus lists it for your exam year.
What the poem is about
The speaker recalls his father at work, handling a team of horses and cutting a straight furrow with a horse-plough. He describes the father's skill and strength and admires the neatness of the work. The child tries to follow, stumbling in the furrows and wishing to grow up to be like him.
He is both proud and sometimes a nuisance, tagging along and demanding attention. In the last stanza, the situation is reversed: now the father is old and it is he who stumbles behind the speaker, and cannot be shaken off. The poem moves from admiration to the discomfort of changed roles.
Themes and ideas
Admiration of a parent
The father is seen with a child's awe as skilled and strong. Heaney captures the wish to be like him.
Skill and rural work
Farm labour is presented as a craft. The poem shows respect for the precision of tradition.
Growing up and changing roles
The final stanza turns the poem on its head. It shows how time reverses dependence between generations.
Ageing, memory and guilt
The ending carries a mix of tenderness and unease. The speaker cannot easily escape his father's presence or his own sense of obligation.
Form, structure and sound
Six regular quatrains with a steady rhythm echo the ploughman's steady work. Heaney uses concrete, physical vocabulary and strong verbs to show the father's skill, and similes to convey size and power. Half-rhymes loosen the pattern slightly.
The shift in the final stanza, signalled by a change of time, is the poem's key moment. The same regular form carries the new, more uneasy meaning.
How to write about it
Divide your answer between admiration and reversal. Examine verbs and images that make the father's work look graceful, then explain how the last stanza changes the earlier meaning.
As the poem is in copyright, paraphrase and use very short quotations. Link the steady form to the sense of craft, and note how the ending raises complicated feelings rather than a neat resolution.
A useful comparison for an anthology question is Hunting Snake, because the two poems share enough ground to compare. Our guide to comparing two poems shows how.
Studying Follower by Seamus Heaney? The paid trial lesson can start with the poem itself and one exam-style question.
An exam-style question to practise
How does Heaney present the relationship between father and son in 'Follower'?
Plan your answer in five minutes before you write. Choose three points from the themes and form notes above. Then check your plan against the mark scheme section below.
More question angles
- Explore the ways Heaney uses language to describe the father's skill.
- How does Heaney use the final stanza to change the meaning of the poem?
How this maps to the mark scheme
Examiners mark poetry answers against assessment objectives. These are the skills the paper rewards. For Cambridge International 0475, the objectives are summarised on our qualification page.
- AO1: Show detailed knowledge of the content of literary texts in the three main forms (drama, poetry and prose), supported by reference to the text.
- AO2: Understand the meanings of literary texts and their contexts, and explore texts beyond surface meanings to show deeper awareness of ideas and attitudes.
- AO3: Recognise and appreciate ways in which writers use language, structure and form to create and shape meanings and effects.
- AO4: Communicate a sensitive and informed personal response to literary texts.
- The four assessment objectives carry equal weight, about 25% each.
For Follower, build your reading around “Admiration of a parent” and “Skill and rural work”, and support each point with a short quotation. Then explain how the form, structure and sound in the section above create that meaning.
Where a question asks you to link poems, compare Follower with Hunting Snake. Keep any context about Seamus Heaney brief and tied to the words on the page.
Read the poem alongside these notes. This page is our own analysis and original teaching material. We quote at most a short attributed phrase where a point needs it, so keep your anthology open as you read.
Where to go next
Practise the method on an unseen poem with our guide to reading an unseen poem, then see a worked answer in our comparing poems model response. Browse more anthology poems or read about Literature in English tuition.
When you have written an answer on Follower, a paid one-hour trial lesson lets the teacher who would continue mark it with you.