Storm On The Island

Question 1

Context
Structure/form
Message

Answer 1

Seamus Heaney-
Northern ire posh poet - won the Nobel prize for literature
Wrote on themes of childhood, nature and homeland/personal experience.
Structure / form-
The poem is written pin. Blank verse (no rhyme) mirroring the pattern of everyday speech and makes part of it sound like a conversation
The plural “we” is used and shows that it is a collective experience
The poem shifts from security to fear.

Question 2

Quotation 1 ~ “STORM ON The island”

Answer 2

“STORM ON The island”

• Stormont is the name for the nrorthern Irish Houses of Parliament.
• there were a lot of political disturbances and problems between catholics and Protestants.

Question 3

Quotation 2 ~ “sink walls in rock…good slate”

Answer 3

“Sink walls in rock…good slate”

• lots of words to do with safety and security
• feeling of being secure disappears with enjambent in the rest of the poem.
• There is an element of security in the home

Question 4

Quotation 3 ~ “tragic chorus”

Answer 4

“Tragic chorus”

• in a Greek tragedy a chorus comments on and explains events
• having no trees to act as a chorus suggests islanders are left isolated

Question 5

Quotation 4 ~ “exploding comfortably”

Answer 5

“Exploding comfortably”

-oxymoron juxtaposes the emotions/feelings of fear and safety.

Question 6

Quotation 5 ~ “salvo…bombarded”

Answer 6

“Salvo…bombarded”
- words usually used to describe place or doings of a war, the wind is compared to a frighten plane atacking the Island
- semantic field of war terms = salvo-multiple gun fire
= strafes-gunfire at close range
= savage
= splits