ANALYSIS FOR STORM ON THE ISLAND

• “This wizened earth has never troubled us With hay, so, as you see “

  • The earth is physically dried up or is more knowleagable than man
  • irony as there are no crops to see → shows bitterness and unforgiveness for the arable land
  • The tag “so as you see” is conversational → emphasises shared identity
  • alludes to the least intellegent pig who built it’s house with hay, implying the residents think they are smarter than the storm
• “We are bombarded by empty air”

  • metaphor for the fact that war has no foundation and is based on nothing
  • history and identity are nebulous concepts
  • Plosives ↔ our source of hatred is fleeting and intangible like air
• “the flung spray hits The very windows spit like a tame cat turned savage”

  • Incongruous (disagreeing )simile and zoomorphism shows that nature can be healing and kind, whilst also chaotic just like how animals are domestic and wild.
  • windows are a way of viewing into the world and opening into it.
  • by saying it “hit” by a “flung spray” shows how politicans through their opinions at society and through their dogma and biased interpretations which blocks out the real view of the world
• “Forgetting that it pummels your house too”

  • personification reinforces we can be so tied up in our personal fears that we can forget about the rest of our environment
• “It’s a huge nothing that we fear”

  • shows that extreme political tensions have been normalised
  • juxtaposition creates a sense of unprediciablitiy creating more fear
  • ambigous
  • are the conflicts based on nothing concrete but mutual decisions and nebulous concepts like loyalty
  • or is the huge nothing the unfathomable, groundless, unnecessary hostility between communities
• CONTEXT:

  • Heaney grew up in a farming village in NI
  • Troubles occurred in NI from the ends of the 60s -90s in which unionists wanted to stay with the UK and nationalists wanted to leave
  • #3 - There are many Irish islands with small but close-knit populations , many islands are exposed to the elements and the Atlantic ocean