STORM ON THE ISLAND SEAMUS HEANEY

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Structure

  • Not a specific form
  • One large stanza 1             Intense like a storm.
  • 19 line                              Together like the Islanders
  • Iambic pentameter
  • There is no rhyme in this poem this gives a conversational tone
  • The poem is in present tense to suggest that the storm is on going 
  • There is a lot of enjambment this adds to the conversational tone.
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Themes

  • Heaney wrote the the poem in 1966 when the IRA was fighting against England - evidence of this is that the title of the peom has the word STORMONT in it which is the name of the parliamentary building in Ireland which the IRA bombed.
  • Heaney was not a romatic poet however he used the same ideas that nature both a tyrat but also a liberator and protector and that we all should be in awe of nature's power.
  • The storm on the Island which the poem talks about can aslo represent the Irish and England and their turmoil.
  • Can be compared to Exsposure and the Prelude to do with the pwer of nature.
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Quotes #1

'We are prepared:' 2nd person - connects to the reader. Present tense demonstrates that the storm is on going. Caesura creates a pause highlighting that the islanders' power and control.

'Never troubled us with hay, so, you see, there is no stacks or stooks that can be lost.' Use of sibillant to link the idea that humans and the Earth are working together, but also in a sarcastic tone.

'So that you can listen to the thing you fear forgetting that it pummels your house too.' - fear of the unknown; a direct address that creates an intimancy with the reader. The violent languge suggest that nature is over powering man.

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Quotes #2

'Think that the sea is company, exploding comfortably down on the cliffs' - Oxymoron shows the power of nature and how easy it is for nature to be powerful. The use of the word 'think' suggest that nature (the sea) will allow you to believe that you are a team, a friend but nature is unpredictable and in the end might not be a friend to you.

'Spits like a tame cat turned savage.' -  Zoomorophic simile - acts nice and safe but if annoyed will attack - suggest the cat is Ireland.

'Strafes invisibly. Space is a salvo. We are bombarded by empty air. Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear.' - Heaney uses words to do with emptiness next to military words to show absence of change is scary; ambigious the islanders/Irish are not scared/ have nothing to be afraid of.

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