Storm on the Island

Question 1

We are prepared: we build our houses squat,

Answer 1

The language is rough and rural, giving the speaker a more agricultural tone.

Question 2

The wizened earth had never troubled us

Answer 2

• The poet describes the earth almost like an old friend. Personifying it like an old wrinkled man.
• It could also suggest it has never stirred to help them either.

Question 3

With hay, so as you can see, there are no stacks

Answer 3

• The poet has a slightly ironic tone saying that because the ground has not been very arable they don’t have to worry about looking after any crops or trees blowing over.
• Coloquial tone continued as the poet appeals directly to the reader, enjambment also helps to convey this tone.

Question 4

Which might prove company when it blows full

Answer 4

• The poet talks about much of nature with the same semantics as If it were a neighbour ‘company’.
• Something to share the experience with.
• The enjambment creates a conversational tone.

Question 5

Blast: you know what I mean - leaves and branches

Answer 5

• Aside gives a very personal conversational tone using a generic phrase.
• Blasts links to the semantic field of war.

Question 6

Can raise a chorus in a gale

Answer 6

• Personified the weather, suggesting it is singing.

- more than one repeated event.

Question 7

So that you can listen to the thing you fear

Answer 7

• Direct address using the word ‘you’ and talking about fear creates a friendly intimacy with the speaker.
• lack of power- can’t do anything but listen

Question 8

Forgetting that it pummels your house too.

Answer 8

• Violent language suggests the power of the weather as dominant over man.
• fighting and gradually wearing down

Question 9

Exploding comfortably down on the cliffs

Answer 9

Oxymoron, exploding is quite a violent term contrasting with comfortably, the poet is suggesting that because the violence is far off you feel more secure.

Question 10

The very windows, spits like a tame cat

Turned savage.We just sit tight while wind dives

Answer 10

• Simile the poet uses a very familiar image to describe something that is powerful and majestic, this undermines the strength of the weather, suggesting it is only scary if we choose to let it.
• the idiom implies it is so powerful it is preventing them from doing whatever they wanted to do.

Question 11

And strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo.

Answer 11

-Military metaphors salvo, strafe, bombardment relate to air attacks. The poet is drawing comparisons with the wind and human aircraft, suggesting that they are only what we make them. The war semantic field.

Question 12

Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.

Answer 12

Oxymoron the poet suggests that our fear is a paradox, there is nothing to fear or that we fear the nothingness of the invisible wind.

Question 13

What’s the context behind the poem?

Answer 13

Seamus Heaney was a poet in Ireland, he grew up in a farming community and many of his poems were about very normal and homely subjects. He uses a large number of agricultural and natural images in his work as metaphors for human nature..
The poem is set around a story of a small isolated cottage near the sea in a storm and the exposure to the elements.

Question 14

How does the poem link to conflict?

Answer 14

The poem looks at the conflict between nature and man and peoples fear of the weather. However the poet also points out that the fears are really rather small in the grand scheme. There is also a hint of war and conflict in the way the weather is described with “bombardment” and “salvo”.

Question 15

Describe the poem’s structure…

Answer 15

The poem is in blank verse with 19 lines. There are 5 feet (10 syllables) in each line. The verses are
unrhymed and it gives it a very conversational tone. This is added to by the use of asides ‘you know what I mean’. The poem is in present tense to suggest the storm is occurring at the time. The poem uses a great deal of enjambment to help add to the conversational tone.

Question 16

What could the poet be suggesting about fear?

Answer 16

The poem ends with “it is a huge nothing that we fear”, the suggestion is not just about the weather but also potentially many things. As a Irish Catholic, religion is a big element in Heaney’s life. He humbles the weather into very human terms unlike other poems which fear it’s might. In many ways he is also humbling the idea of God. Reducing his power into a ‘huge nothing’. The suggestion of fear is that power is only there if you let the other thing scare you. Behind his walls and well prepared, he doesn’t need to fear and so the weather (and god) lose power.

Question 17

Who wrote the poem?

Answer 17

Seamus Heaney

Question 18

Key points…

Answer 18

• The cottage represents safety and calm and behind its walls the violence of the weather is undermined. It reflects a conflict between nature and man.
• The poet is able to communicate a sense of calm friendliness using asides and very recognisable imagery to describe the attack of the weather.
• The poets suggestion of fear challenges the allocation of power, that we only give power to what we fear if we let it.

Question 19

Themes…

Answer 19

• Power of humans
• Power of nature
• Fear
• Pride

Question 20

Key quotes…

Answer 20

"huge nothing"
"like a tamed cat"
"we are prepared"
"bombarded"
"no natural shelter"

Question 21

Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate.

Answer 21

They are creating strong foundations to prepare, the digging into the ground has connotations of soldiers in the trenches preparing for battle, this portrays a sense of conflict.

Question 22

How does the word colloquial apply to this?

Answer 22

The poem is written in a conversational tone.

Question 23

How does the IRA terrorist group link to this?

Answer 23

He wrote about this terrorist group trying to free northern Ireland from Britain. It caused families to be torn apart.