What at first seems to be a simple reminiscing of a childhood memory, the Seamus Heaney’s “Blackberries” conveys the speaker’s concern about man’s inability to control his desire through its literary elements. The speaker’s use of imagery, allusion, and slant rhymes exhibits his belief that man is easily overcome by temptation.
As the speaker first describes the blackberry harvest, the underlying rape imagery suggests a parallel with man’s ineptitude of self-control. The first berry is described as “glossy,” conveying a sense of purity or virgini