Many great poets make a correlation between two similar stories and with the use of metaphorical imagery they create a sophisticated and emotional poem. Seamus Heaney particularly concentrates on the subject of the Irish Troubles, the enmity between Ireland and England, and the various aspects and problems of the human experience. This is well demonstrated in his poem "Punishment" where he uses the story of the so-called Windeby Girl and imagery to describe the conflict of Northern Ireland. By exploring the example of human suffering, the unexplained and believed malicious murder and what it was that lead her killers to perform such a dreadful act, in this poem he manages to examine how the micro-situation has so many similarities with the much larger situation being experienced in Ireland.

The Windeby Girl is the preserved remains of a female body discovered in the bogs of Scandinavia. Forensic analysis of...