What makes that skunk beautiful: How One Direction explain Seamus Heaney's constant care for his absent wife in 'The Skunk'

No relationship, yet

One Direction’s breakout song, ‘What Makes You Beautiful’, is somewhat of an anomaly; it’s sung romantically to someone seemingly not in a relationship with the band and who appears to have little to no idea of what the five-piece are singing about. But that’s not to say Harry, Louis, Liam, Zayn and Niall are looking at this girl’s wall when not Facebook friends; rather it’s their attempt to show why they like this person and get her to realise this. So it’s all good; no need to go searching ‘block’ in the Facebook browser.

No arrogance – no connection

From the start 1D (that’s One Direction for those in the know) show that the girl doesn’t know she’s attractive, singing “You’re insecure”, meaning she’s unaware how beautiful she is or that others take notice of this: “You’re turning heads when you walk through the door”. Because if you were confident and arrogant then you’d be looking around to see who was looking at you, but the beautiful girl in this song is not like that whatsoever. This is also important as it suggests there’s some distance between the singers and the girl – she doesn’t know what they know and relationships are based on open communication and interaction, immediately hinting that they’re not going to be posting about being in relationships on Facebook anytime soon.

Chocolate delight

So the band start singing about how beautiful this girl is and soon all this talk of aesthetic attractiveness gets to the band, who sing that “The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed”. It’s like if there was a beautiful piece of chocolate cake on the table and rather than looking away you started thinking about how luscious and sweet and tasty and chocolately it is; this would naturally make your taste buds tremble and salivate until you can’t imagine anything else excepting eating it all up in one go. Note again how the description of such actions suggest the band are admirers from afar, once more suggesting that we’re still in the puppy love stage of the (potential) relationship.

Aesthetic infatuation

1D soon become infatuated by the girl, shamelessly admitting that all this talk of how beautiful she is has made them want to be with her all the more; to be fair, they’re quite open about this, rather than being deceptive like a dastardly Shakespearean villain (Claudius or Macbeth to name but two), declaring “If only you saw what I can see/ You’ll understand why I want you so desperately”. That chocolate delight is becoming harder and harder to ignore but 1D make it clear they haven’t had their cake and eaten it yet; “You’ll understand why I want you so desperately” now confirms what we’ve speculated about so far, that they’re not actually in a relationship yet.

Musical confirmation

Usually you can’t have all the cake and eat it too, but if you do then you have to be able to give a reason why; similarly, Facebook says you should only add people as friends that you know. 1D, similarly, show the reason for their song; they’ve sung about how much they like the girl because of her beauty so she can hear this song, so as to realise that i) she’s beautiful and ii) that their love for her is for real, like her beauty: “So come on, you got it wrong/ To prove I’m right, I put it in a song”. Beauty = me like = write a song so you know I like. The formation to any great love story (or song).

Irish poet in America

Over in Cali, Berkeley to be exact, Seamus is by himself with no backing singers; he’s lecturing in this place (the year’s 1970, or 71) with his wife at home. But he’s not going to be alone for long as he’s befriended a skunk, named in the title and described at the beginning, “Up, black, striped and damasked like the chasuble/ At a funeral mass”. Immediately there’s a similarity to 1D, singing to the girl they’re not with yet; Seamus isn’t in love with a skunk (let’s get that straight), but rather away from his wife, so he’ll use this animal to represent his love for his better half even when away from the woman he thinks is beautiful (intertextuality, check).

Expecting you

This description of the skunk is impressive, even if there is mention of a funeral (clearly a symbolic link for being away from Mrs. H), which will be proven at the close when Seamus describes his wife. What results is that this skunk, used as a representation of love for his wife, begins to overwhelm Seamus, much like 1D were enthralled by the beauty of their romantic interest; like they can’t keep their eyes of the girl, constantly describing how beautiful she is, Heaney admits “Night after night/ I expected her like a visitor.” A quick FYI: note how 1D use beauty as a lead in to a relationship and Heaney similarly focuses on his love for his wife through physical features; this may be seen to show how both present their romantic situations as at the start of relationships, when people, naturally and vainly, focus on appearance at least in part.

Animalistic reliance

When 1D focused on the girl’s beauty they began to want to be with her more and more, so in a shocking turn of events the same happens to Heaney (especially coincidental in a resource all about parallels); the skunk allows him a physical memory of his wife and hence he becomes reliant on this, with such beauty making him want to view the animal more and more, as he cannot see his wife at present, “I began to be tense as a voyeur.” Another FYI: there is a slight difference here; 1D only risked being blocked on Facebook as they kept looking at the girl, where Heaney suggests voyeurism to symbolically admit he’s using another’s beauty to focus on that of his wife and hence his care for Mrs. H. Voyeurism = too far away to see you so I’ll look at someone else, somewhat taboo as it goes against the whole point of being with one person in marriage. But don’t worry, Seamus and his wife will be together at the end, it’ll all get sorted.

I want to be with you (not that skunk)

1D then revealed their big master plan; they thought the girl was beautiful so they wrote a song all about how beautiful she was, so she could hear it and realise how much they liked her. Seamus does the same; the skunk is a replacement for his wife, of sorts, which he becomes reliant on. But just to make sure no one thinks he might run off with the animal and ditch his wife he reveals that he’ll now write a poem to prove, like 1D, that his focus is really on the beauty of his wife, who he is disconnected from, meaning that the skunk’s similarities only increase his care for the woman across the Atlantic, waking up for her breakfast while Heaney spends all night with a skunk: “After eleven years I was composing/ Love-letters again, broaching the word ‘wife’/ Like a stored cask” (told you it’ll be sorted). Of note is that this has further parallels to 1D, who are at the beginning of their relationship with the girl, suggesting disconnect at any point of the relationship will return the individual to its primitive stages where they want to be with the person but are not yet experiencing this; what are the odds of another parallel?!

It’s all about Mrs. H

But what’s that you say? Heaney has been focusing on the skunk’s beauty all this time? Well remember what we said when starting to look at the poem, about the description of the skunk actually representing Seamus’ wife; at the very end of the poem Heaney draws a parallel to wrap things up (and save his marriage), noting his wife’s “head-down, tail-up hunt in a bottom drawer/ For the black plunge-line nightdress”, suggesting a link between the animal and his wife. Chronologically you may argue that Heaney writes in retrospect (maybe to excuse himself from being with that adulterous skunk trying to steal everyone’s man), but we think the poet had seen the nightdress before he left and was subconsciously connecting to his wife through the animal, to let Mrs. H know what makes her beautiful. Either way, a happy ending, as Heaney only lectured for a year before returning home, leaving that home-wrecking skunk to hang by herself at the orange tree.

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