follower annotations

Introduces the poem with a focus on the father’s positive traits, showing the speaker’s admiration for his age and leading the reader to also admire him.

This focus on the father’s past positive traits make the end of the poem even more jarring and stunning for the reader It shows the speaker’s idolisation of his father and his admiration for him It also sets up something that will be ruined with age Foreshadowing?

Rhyme scheme and even lines

• The even lines reflect the order and evenness of the father’s ploughing.
• The imperfect rhyme scheme both foreshadow the father’s degradation but also suggests poet feels less perfect than his father

‘shoulders globed like a full sail strung’

• ‘globed’ connects to the world. along with shoulders, it creates image of Atlas. this shows just how impressive the father is in the speaker’s eyes, being compared to a titan who held the world on his shoulders
• long ‘o’ assonance drags out this image
• ‘full sail strung’ compares father to a ship, making him seem as powerful as one
• ‘s’ sounds seem onomatopoeic and add to the tension that must rest on those shoulders

‘An expert.’

• short, concise sentence emphasises the content.
• reflects the precision that the father has as an ‘expert’
• caesura adds to that feeling of finality and finish

Contrasts the awkward young speaker with the father.

The contrast of the boy’s inexperience and the father’s power and capability shows the positive effects of what age can do to someone. It also predicts what will happen to the boy: he will grow into a powerful, able man like his father It also shows the ability gap between the father and the son, this adds to the shock and impact of the status switch later

‘Narrow’, ‘angled’, ‘mapping’, ‘exactly’ vs ‘stumbled’, ‘fell’

• The first set of verbs has connotations of expertise, precision and focus
• The second has connotations of incompetence, novice and failure
• This shows the contrast between the father and son
• Shows positive characteristics of age

‘he rode me on his back’

• suggests that the speaker thought he was a burden on his father
• hints at his later implied guilt at his frustration with his father
• act of riding suggests a very clear power dynamic between father and son

‘All I ever did was follow’

• ‘all’ and ‘ever’ very final and hyperbolic
• shows him demeaning himself, saying how the best thing he did was follow
• establishes the contrast between father and son even more, emphasises it
• ‘did’ is past tense, implies something has changed
• foreshadows final reveal

Concludes the poem by flipping the roles of follower and followed, showing the effect of age.

This shows there is a cycle to aging, just like there is one in real life. This cycle of aging leads to a cycle of dependency, when the child is first dependent on the parent, but then the parent becomes dependent in the child This could make it relatable and impactful for the reader, as some cultures put lots of emphasis on this cycle and people may be expected to ‘pay their parents back’ for the care they were given by taking care of their parents

‘tripping, falling, / Yapping always.’

• asyndetic tricolon of present participles emphasises how annoying the speaker found himself
• ‘yapping’ suggests an annoying sound, like a puppy
• caesura signals shift in tone but also lets the reader pause and reflect back on the poem
• these words inadvertently describe the father in the present day, they sharply contrast with what we know of the father from the rest of poem

‘I was a nuisance’

• however, his father probably didn’t see him as a nuisance, at least not truly negatively, because he was his son
• suggests how he feels his father is a nuisance now but also maybe feels so much love for him that it doesn’t matter

‘keeps stumbling / Behind me’

• ‘stumbling’ sharply contrasts to how the father has been presented in the rest of the poem
• enjambment adds to continuous movement of stumbling
• ‘behind’ has connotations of leading and protection. it shows the extent of how the roles have been switched