exposure + storm on the island

• TITLE – connotes vulnerability of soldiers – reader learns WW1 soldiers are exposed to violent weather in the trenches

  Also could connote Owen trying to show the reality of war

  Single word = shows conditions they lived in – nothing to protect them from ‘merciless iced east winds’
• ‘storm’ = Heaney shows view of nature is negative – noun connotes destruction and strength

  Isolated setting ‘island’ = reinforces power of nature and no protection from it
• STRUCTURE – chaotic structure = chaos and panic of war

  first person plural – collective voice = experience shared by soldiers

  ABBAC – monotonous nature of the men’s experience

  Pararhymes = ‘snow’ ‘renew’ = emulates realities of soldiers experiences and also reflect confusion

  End of stanzas = half line – mirrors the lack of hope for the men

  Cyclical structure – anaphora “but nothing happens” –emphasises the futility of war

  Caesura – “slowly our ghosts drag home: glimpsing the sunk fires” – separates home from the trenches, they cannot return and must fight in the harsh weather instead
• No rhyme scheme– reflects how order cannot be enforced upon nature – omnipotence of nature,  contrasts from controlled rhythm - shows the power of the storm

  One stanza = compact and sturdy like houses

  Cyclical structure – storm will come back again – cycle of preparation, storm and recovery is never ending

  Enjambment – implies constant barrage of the storm – reflected by single stanza, mirrors overwhelming power of storms, creates panicked feeling of the islanders
• FEAR – soldiers are “wearied we keep awake” and “worried by silence”– repetition of ‘w’ and ‘silence’ reinforces how tired and bored the soldiers are – creates soothing tone. However soothing tone is juxtaposed by the worry that the ‘silence’ causes

  Nature = bigger threat than the enemy- “less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow” – deathlike connotations of the colour ‘black’ – ironically suggests that the soldiers have gone away to fight with nature instead of the opposition
• Semantic field of war – “shelter, exploding, strafes, salvo, bombarded” to describe weather – shows danger islanders are stoic as they wait until storm is over – creates violent tone and aggression – use of plosives “blows full blast” could reflect bullets - personification

  Simile – “spits like a tame cat/turned savage” – oxymoron – tame cat shouldn’t be aggressive – creates frightening tone for the islanders