storm on the island - seamus heaney

Question 1

context

Answer 1

metaphor for the political conflict and violence in northern island
published in 1996 when conflict was ongoing
From collection ‘Death of a Naturalist’ which focused on power of nature within islands close to northern island. (Heaney’s first collection).

Question 2

‘this wizened earth has never troubled us’

Answer 2

irony: it has/will
adjective ‘wizened’: wrinkled with age

Question 3

‘we are prepared’

Answer 3

declarative sentence, irony

Question 4

‘when it blows full blast’

Answer 4

plosive alliteration: alluding to gunfire etc
enjans first and second lines of stanza and follows it w a caesura to reinforce slowed pace

Question 5

‘you listen to the very thing you fear forgetting it pummels your house too’

Answer 5

verb ‘pummels’ plosive sound
determiner ‘your’: reader is included, polarised from previous ‘we’

Question 6

‘no trees, no natural shelter’

Answer 6

storm: metaphor for political conflict - no protection from it/no political solution
caesura slows pace and emphasises no (which is repeated)

Question 7

‘exploding comfortably down on the cliffs’

Answer 7

oxymoron: used ironically to mock the idea of sea being a form of company
violence of the sea is comfort

Question 8

‘spits like a tame cat turned savage’

Answer 8

simile, plosive t sound
zoomorphism: cats can be domestic and wild

Question 9

‘bombarded by the empty air’

Answer 9

bombarded: dynamic verb linking to field of war
empty air: metaphor, conflict has no foundation/is meaningless

Question 10

‘strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear’

Answer 10

oxymoronic phrase ‘huge nothing’ after the caesura indicates power of nature
an ambiguous conclusion

Question 11

‘build our houses squat… roof them with good slate’

Answer 11

half rhyme: replicating storm’s manner