Heaney’s message in Mother of the Groom consists in revealing a rather touchy theme of emotional duality. The poem shows the mixed feelings most parents feel when their children get married. Alongside joy and happiness, the uncertain feelings penetrate the parents’ hearts on a wedding day. The poem is a symbolic association of the wedding day with the loss and sadness. Through the symbol of wedding, the author also shows how the time passes and life revives from one generation to another.

On her son’s wedding day, the groom’s mother shares a moment of loss of an emotional connectedness with her son. Her emotions are mixed because the recollections of the past disallow her to fully celebrate the moment of joy. She somehow loses her son for the sake of another woman: “Hands in her voided lap, She hears a daughter welcomed.” The memories of the past enhance sadness in her heart, and just cannot help filling the gap. Raising the theme of mother’s love, the author provokes us to think about the ambiguousness of parental devotion. The poem shows that we forever remain children in our parents’ hearts no matter what choices we make in life.

Mother of the Groom by Seamus Heaney touches readers with deep feelings and inner recollections of the son by the mother on his wedding day. She recalls the groom throughout all his life back to the time when he was a baby.

The author writes from a third person to best reflect the mother’s thoughts. The tone of the poem is rather mixed ranging from happiness to utter sadness. On the one hand, the mother memorizes being connected to her son, whereas on the other hand, she fears losing her son to her daughter-in-law. Obviously, the thoughts are haunting her now while as a mother she is losing the in-depth connection with her son. The irony of the poem is Heaney’s approach to show a mother’s naivety of holding her son’s love forever. The author reveals such sort of connectedness as paranoiac. From now on, she will always feel something missing, a gap she will never fill: “Hands in her voided lap” (Line 5) best explains her emptiness. In particular, the word ‘voided’ is an eye-catchy word illustrating all the precious love the mother feels to her son.

As an outstanding wordsmith, Heaney masterly plays with the selected words. The rings symbolize continuity and completeness: “The wedding ring That’s bedded forever now
In her clapping hand.” The author uses the ‘soap’ as a metaphor to say that time is flying away and that it is impossible for the mother to hold her son anymore. Alluding to her own wedding ring that no soap would ever remove, Heaney symbolizes the permanence of the mother’s happiness in marriage.

The opening stanza declares the nostalgic mood of the mother recalling her son’s boots: “In the ring of boots at her feet.” While the mother recalls how her son grew up and matured to a man throughout the second stanza, the mood of the poem shifts from nostalgia to sadness and uncertainty. Finally, the third stanza is a mixed resolution through the mother’s simultaneous resignation and delight.

To make the poem rather symbolic, the author has applied various stylistic devices, namely allusions, metaphors, images, associations. By using vivid images, Heaney achieves a startling contrast that makes us think about the complexity of a wedding day beyond the moment of joy and celebration. The image of a “ring” symbolizes the deep connectedness among the generations, which explains why the mother is not willing to give her son away.