Storm on the Island: Seamous Heaney (1966)

Question 1

Context

Answer 1

• Heaney’s Northern Irish
• Most of Heaney’s poetry is about nature
• a metaphor for the political storm in Northern Ireland in the second half of the twentieth century
• Storm: represents the violence in Northern Ireland during the troubles

Question 2

Form

Answer 2

Dramatic monologue: a one-sided view that reflects the imbalance of the relationship between narrator and nature

• gives narrator ironic dominance

Question 3

Structure

Answer 3

• Blank verse: english poetry technique but Irish everyday talk
• Enjambent: reflects the ongoing nature of the storm and lack of control over it
• Lack of rhyme: lack of control
• Starts and ends with half rhyme: cyclical structure, inescapable storm

Question 4

‘Exploding comfortably’

Answer 4

• Oxymoron: the narrator has made sense and become comfortable with the conflict-filled world
• striking to the reader
• appeals to the senses

Question 5

‘strafes’ ‘space’ ‘salvo’

Answer 5

• Sibilance: sounds like the storm and appeals to the senses as you can hear it
• reflects harsh nature of the storm and the conflict, a hissing snake

Question 6

“We are bombarded by the empty air”

Answer 6

• War imagery: attacked by a threat that can barely be seen
• powerlessness against nature and conflict

-‘bombarded’: violent verb

Question 7

Power of what?

Answer 7

• Nature

- Powerlessness of humans

Question 8

Conflict of what?

Answer 8

• Human desire to control

- Nature’s opposing destructive force

Question 9

3 quotes

Answer 9

‘Exploding comfortably’

“We are bombarded by the empty air”

‘strafes’ ‘space’ ‘salvo’