Storm On The Island

Question 1

Context (2)

Answer 1

• Many of Seamus Heaney’s poems were about very normal and homely subjects
• 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 2

Themes (3)

Answer 2

• Power of humans - “we build our houses squat”
• Power of nature - power of the storm “huge nothing”
• Fear

Question 3

Structure (2)

Answer 3

• The verses are unrhymed as it gives it a very conversational tone e,g “you know what I mean”
• Poem uses a great deal of enjambment - adds to the conversational tone

Question 4

Fear (2)

Answer 4

• The poem ends with “it is a huge nothing that we fear” - suggests it’s not just about the weather but also potentially many things
• In many ways he is also humbling God reducing its power to a “huge nothing”

Question 5

Key quotes (4)

Answer 5

• “This wizened earth has never troubled us”
• “It pummels your house too”
• “exploding comfortably”
• “strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear”

Question 6

Analyse “This wizened earth has never troubled us”

Answer 6

Personifying the earth almost like an old friend as it is “wizened”

Question 7

Analyse “It pummels your house too”

Answer 7

Violent language - suggests the power of the weather as dominant over man

Question 8

Analyse “exploding comfortably” (2)

Answer 8

• Oxymoron
• “exploding” is quite a violent term contrasting with “comfortably” - suggests that because the violence is far off you feel more secure

Question 9

Analyse “strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear” (tone quote) (2)

Answer 9

• Tone of confusion
• Oxymoron suggests that our fear is a paradox - there is nothing to fear or that we fear the nothingness of the invisible wind