storm on the island

• "we are prepared" vs "huge nothing that we fear"


  cyclical structure in that the poem opens and ends with the collective pronoun "we", connoting the incessancy of nature, however their collective confidence dwindles to feelings of fear, making their emotions linear
• Heaney employs a single stanza to provide no relief for the reader from the relentless aggression of nature.
• "Blast" "pummel" "bombarded"


  semantic field of military lexis and plosives suggests that nature acts as the aggressive enemy and equalises the storm with a violent battlefield.
• "exploding comfortably"


  oxymoron - speaker has made sense of the uncontrollable and uncomfortable power of nature
• "spits like a tame cat / turned savage"


  enjambment - constant effect of the storm and therefore the tension brewing in Northern Ireland between loyalists and nationalists that led to the Troubles

  simile - peaceful image turned aggressive linking to Ireland and the progressive violence and tensions
• "no trees, no natural shelter"


  anaphora - exemplifies how nature is vilified because they are powerless against the incessant power of nature
• written in blank verse, with a regular iambic pentameter rhythm, creates a sense of order and stability which is antithetical to the unpredictable violence of nature.
• The poem is an allegory for the turbulent political landscape of Northern Ireland leading up to the Troubles after 800 years of British colonial oppression.