storm on the island

• seamus heaney presents the battle of nature vs man and he dives into the experience of the undefeatable storm, it centres on their experiences of the storm, and how they appear to get them regularly, and then how this impacts life on the island as they wait inside for it to pass
• 'we are prepared' - arrogance in the declarative - too confident, shown by how bold and declarative, they are confident in their ability to overpower nature, but also portrays their fear - they have completely adapted their lives to the purpose of resisting nature
• 'wizened earth' - connotes wisdom and respect
• 'as you see', 'you know what i mean' - heaney relies on conversational colloquialisms to connect the reality of the islander's lives to the readers
• 'no stacks or stooks that can be lost' - no way to judge damage
• 'blows full blast' - plosives gives a sense of violence and aggression and suggests nature is attacking the island - the plosives also resembles bullets which shows weather is as deadly as a weapon
• 'tragic chorus' - continues the theme of community vs isolation in the situation of a natural disaster
• 'spits like a tame cat turned savage' - mistaken belief they had tamed nature, yet then the cat (weather) turns against its owner and it replicates how the islanders never owned nature - it was always more powerful than them, as the split the tamed and known nature before from the violent aggressive storm
• the aran islands are seen traditionally in irish poetry as a symbol of culture as they are known for ancient sites such as the remains of forts, this exposes their isolation
• through setting his poem here heaney is using the poem as an autobiography of irish culture, this is demonstrated by his depiction of a collective experience of an island by using the pronoun 'we'
• the dramatic monologue structure means the poem is like a one way conversation which reflects the position of the islanders who have no one to help during the storm because they are isolated and alone
• by using iambic pentameter, the poem is maintaining a constant rhythm which could be argued to reflect a conversational tone and this is alongside conversational tags such as 'you might think', 'but no' and 'you know what i mean' which helps the reader to feel involved and engaged, further this concept reflects that only as a community can the storm be endured
• there is no consistent rhyme scheme, which reflects how order cannot be enforced upon nature, it is more powerful than humans, so humans have no way to control it and the lack of rhyme scheme relates to the omnipotence of nature, further this contrasts with the very controlled rhythm, which works to show human power resisting chaos and power of a storm
• there is some half rhyme which shows that nature only allows for partial organisation, and also that humans can only ever partially control and tame nature
• the half rhyme between the first and last couplet ('house squat/good slate' and 'the empty air/huge nothing that we fear') creates a cyclical structure that connects the preparation for the storm at the start, to the fear of the storm's power at the end
• the cyclical nature of the poem shows the resilience of the islanders and storms will come again, then they will learn to live with them and endure it : the cycle of preparation, storm and recovery is never ending, however due to the fundamental insufficiency of human power, no matter what humans do there is always the possibility that nature will destroy it because nature's power is greater
• the poem begins optimistically but the tone shifts to one of fear, this shift could reflect the final calm before a storm, and also the inability for the islanders to prepare for it properly because they cannot see it coming
• enjambement - the line overflows which implies the constant barrage of information or alternatively the constant barrage of the storm and this is reflected in the arrangement of the poem into one single stanza, as it mirrors the overwhelming power of storms, further the reader becomes overwhelmed by the size of the poem and the breathlessness created from the enjambement replicates the panicked feeling of the islanders as they are faced with the storm
• military language is nature referred to in military terms, for example, the air 'strafes' and 'salvos' and by comparing the storm to a military plane, heaney shows the speaker that the islanders are under attack from nature and this creates a tone of violence and aggression and the excessive use of plosives such 'blows full blast' could be reflective of bullets
• heaney also uses many conversational tags (colloquialism - an informal phrases), which draw the reader in and include them in the poem this may suggest that everyone can experience the impact of nature
• heaney uses similes such as 'spits like a tame cat/turned savage' this seems oxymoronic because a tame cat shouldn't be aggressive and if the cat is a simile for nature, heaney is suggesting nature has a tame and docile side (dual-natured)
• heaney personifies nature by making it seem like it intends to attack the island, for example, it 'pummels' and the island is 'bombarded' which implies that the storm has a malicious intent to harm and damage
• heaney suggests throughout his poem that the power of nature is unknown and the islanders have no indicators of the storm's power and the line 'no stacks or stooks that can be lost' shows that there's no way to judge damage and here, the poet is commenting on the tragedy and devastation of the storm and this could also reflect the political storm in the form of the northern irish troubles