Storm

Question 1

What’s it about

Answer 1

Storm on the Island describes the experience of being in a cliff-top cottage on an island off the coast of Ireland during a storm. The poet, Seamus Heaney describes the bare ground, the sea and the loud wind. The people in the cottage are extremely isolated and can do nothing against the powerful and violent weathe

Question 2

We are prepared: we build our houses squat, Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate.

Answer 2

• Caesura: make the reader pause uncomfortably
  -We’: First person plural pronoun ‘We’ opens the poem on
  a strong, safe position. Defiant collective statement – community and family. Effect of ‘We are prepared:’? Heaney creates a sense of community that the reader is invited to feel part of.
• Blank verse with irregular enjambment and caesurae. Mimics natural speech.This wizened earth has never troubled us The reader feels they are being told the story directly in an informal way

Question 3

wizened earth has never troubled us With hay, so, as you can see, there are no stacks

Answer 3

-‘wizened earth’ suggests barren (infertile)/dried up. Nothing will grow there.
- Verb ‘troubled’ used in an ironic way. Effect? Implies that hay would end up being a problem if it were able to grow?

Question 4

Which might prove company when it blows full blast

Answer 4

-Alliteration of plosive ‘b’. Emphasises the strength of The wind. Enjambment. As for alliteration.
- Personification of nature. Effect? Nature seen as seemingly friendly emphasising loneliness of the community.

Question 5

Can raise a tragic chorus in a gale

Answer 5

• Personification of nature. Effect? ‘a tragic chorus’ develops a sense of danger/warning. The ‘chorus’ in classical Greek tragedies had a particular role to comment on the action of the plot to ensure the audience understood what was going on.
  Heaney implies that as there are no trees (no ‘leaves and branches’) to act as a chorus to this tragic ‘storm’, the islanders are isolated. They are left on their own to face and interpret the storm OR simpler: no sound of the leaves/branches moving in a storm which makes it more unusual.

Question 6

The very windows, spits like a tame cat Turned savage.

Answer 6

Simile ‘spits like a tame cat’.
Effect? Shows how familiar things become
frightening during the storm. The cat, like the sea changes from tame to savage

Question 7

Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs

Answer 7

oxymoron ‘Exploding comfortably’.
Effect? ‘Exploding’ suggests fear of the stormy sea,
Juxtaposed with ‘comfortably’ which suggests feelings of safety.