storm on the island

• Author's name


  Seamus Heaney
• 1939


  when Seamus Heaney was born
• 2013


  when Seamus Heaney died
• place of birth


  Mossbawn Farm, Northern Ireland
• early life


  grew up in a rural setting steeped in a historic tradition of farming
• profession


  playwright and translator
• common topics in Heaney's poetry


  rural life, childhood experience and identity
• publication context of Storm on the Island

  published in Heaney's first poetry collection 'Death of a Naturalist' (1966), one of three poems within the collection which was written about the Aran islands
• Aran Islands


  a group of three islands on the west coast of Ireland
• themes in Heaney's first poetry collection 'Death of a Naturalist'


  identity, transition to adulthood and the realities of rural life
• Storm on the Island in relation to other poems in the collection

  In 'Death of a Naturalist', 'Storm on the Island' follows 'Synge on Aran', a poem similar in many ways, describing the power of nature on the Aran islands
• The Troubles (1968 - 1998)


  a thirty-year conflict of political violence, low-intensity armed conflict and political deadlock within the six north-eastern counties of Ireland that formed part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Storm on the Island vs Kamikaze


  Storm on the Island is about the power of nature to generate fear - the islanders prepare for a conflict with nature but when the storm arrives, its power creates terror; Kamikaze is about the power of nature's beauty to make people want to live; in Kamikaze, the beauty of nature forces the kamikaze pilot to pull out of his mission
• the similarity between Storm on the Island vs Exposure

  in Exposure, the characters are also victims of the elements - they are sitting in the trenches waiting to be attacked, only to be slowly killed by nature, especially the cold. In Storm on the Island, the people think they are well prepared and then the realise that the storm is far more powerful than they could prepare for in this instance
• A strong link between Storm on the Island and The Prelude

  in The Prelude, when the author sees the mountain, he becomes terrified; he did not have any chance to prepare himself. In contrast, the characters in Storm on the Island knew what was coming and they think they are well prepared for it, they are smug, then the storm hits and they realise how unprepared they are for it
• the key difference between Storm on the Island and The Prelude

  the fear lasts with the speaker in The Prelude for days, whereas in Storm on the Island, we don't know how it ends and are left wonder what happens after the story is finished - we don't know how bad or catastrophic the ending was
• the destructive power of nature


  Features vivid images of how destructive nature can be
• hubris


  excessive pride, often leading to or associated with tragedy, especially in classic literature such as Greek and Early Modern drama
• hubris/(excessive) pride


  the characters in Storm on the Island knew what was coming and they think they are well prepared for it - they are smug, then the storm hits and they realise how unprepared they are for
• safety


  The first part of the poem shows that the community feels safe, and prepared for the storm.
• fear


  The sense of security soon changes to fear, as familiar things change and become frightening.
• helplessness


  The people can't do anything about their fear except wait for the storm to finish. Nature is presented as a powerful, relentless force.
• conflict


  the poem can be seen as a metaphor for the conflict in Northern Ireland
• unity


  'We are prepared: we build our houses squat,' - use of the first person plural pronoun signifies inclusiveness. The speaker is part of a group or clan and so he is speaking on behalf of them. They appear to be a people that work together and so the first person plural pronoun signifies a united community
• Form of 'Storm on the Island'

  generally considered to be a dramatic monologue or free form poem but seems to not conform fully to either; perhaps a hybrid form combining elements of both
• the human condition


  the experiences, emotions, needs etc that all people share, especially considered as a situation from which it is impossible to escape; the general condition of human life including psychology, sociology, politics, etc
• general function of the dramatic monologue

  to dramatise the human condition, perhaps, here, our relationship with nature
• main characteristics of a dramatic monologue

  a dramatic speaker, a defined listener, a developing action in the present and the gradual ironical revelation of the character of the speaker and the implication of another action in the past
• important qualities of the dramatic speaker in a dramatic monologue

  the speaker is not to be confused as the author; the speaker is an imagined persona
• dramatic speaker in Storm on the Island

  in this case, the author may be writing from some kind of personal experience for from the perspective a common person on the Aran Islands, hence the use of the second person pronoun, 'we
• defined listener in Storm on the Island

  likely to be the reader, hence the use of the direct address: 'you might think...
• a developing action in the present

  the speaker's growing realisation of the savage power of nature, emphasised by his use of the present simple tense
• the gradual ironical revelation of the character of the speaker


  he reveals his as well as his fellow islanders' confidence in their preparedness against nature to be misplaced
• free form poem definition

  poetry that is free from limitations of regular meter or rhythm, and does not rhyme with fixed forms.
• free form poetry is also known as


  free verse
• Storm on the Island's free verse characteristics


  the poem features iambic pentameter but not in strict form; it also features pararhyme, rather than full rhyme; the form does not appear to conform fully to any of the traditional types
• effects of using free verse in this poem

  perhaps symbolises the islanders' refusal to be controlled by the power of nature
• the meaning of the title

  by having no article (no 'a' or 'the' to begin the title), Heaney generalises so that Storm on the Island could describe any storm on any island; there is a sense that Heaney is not writing about one storm in particular, but about many similar storms.
• symbolic meaning of the word 'storm'


  could symbolise some kind of problem, possibly war, the use of a zero article means that it is not a specific storm - it could be any storm or multiple storms or regular storms
• symbolic meaning of the noun phrase 'the island'

  definite article 'the' makes it a specific place, a specific place which deals with many different problems such as war or attacks; storm could symbolize that the issues they face are not internal but are generated from the outside, such as invasions