Storm on the Island

• Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate. this wizened earth has never troubled us
• You might think that the sea is company, exploding comfortably down on the cliffs
• Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear
• So that you listen to the thing you fear forgetting it pummels you too
• Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate. This wizened earth has never troubled us

  Sibilance and consonance- conflict is sinister

  Extended metaphor poem

  Wizened- ironic- political state is damaging

  Sink- shows how building divides between people causes society to sink
• You might think that the seas is company, exploding comfortably down on the cliffs

  Personification- isolating themselves through conflict between christianities

  Juxtapositon- comfortable using bombs and weapons + predicting bombs will come closer
• So you listen to the thing you fear forgetting it pummels your house too 


  Direct address- collective, emphasises togetherness

  Actions have consequences

  Violence destroys homes and lives through own fear

  Angery, fricative f
• Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear

  Collective pronoun- togetherness

  Moral lesson- asking reader to question normality of conflict

  Oxymoron- the nothing they fear has a hold of them? fear of nothing?