Quotes

• Wizened


  'The wizened earth has never troubled us'

  -link to Irish troubles

  -hint of fear
• Prepared

  'We are prepared: we build our houses squat'

  -reference to safety at end of line reinforcements
• Blast


  'Blast: you know what I mean - leaves and branches'

  -Direct address: wants us to imagine it as a universal experience
• Pummels

  'So that you can listen to the thing you fear. Forgetting that it pummels your house too'

  -Direct address

  -reference to 'plague on both houses' -> Romeo and Juliet with divided communities
• Sit Tight

  'We just sit tight while wind dives and strafes invisibly'

  -repetition and sibilance combine to imitate the hissing and spitting of the sea

  -intensifying conflict

  -invisibility adds to fear of it
• Nothing

  'Its a huge nothing that we fear'

  -contrasts battle imagery with emptiness and absence

  -senseless violence

  -fear of the unknown

  -powerless to nature