Storm on the Island by Seamus Heaney
Part of the AQA Poetry Anthology, Power and Conflict
Analyse the poem “Storm on the Island” by Seamus Heaney to understand the use of form, structure and poetic devices and how these relate to the underlying themes within the poem.
We’ve captured all of the points below in our PDF guide which you can download below.
Where to start
Analysing poetry can be a little daunting at first, and you may need to read it a few times before you understand what the poet is trying to say. Don’t worry though, you will soon get used to it and start to understand how to approach analysing a poem.
It’s important that you use the version of the poem from your anthology when doing your analysis. The layout of some poems can differ from publication to publication (particularly over the internet) – perhaps some words will have been changed or the stanzas may be set out differently. This can affect the analysis. So, always work from the version set out in your anthology as this is how the poem will be laid out in your exam.
When analysing the poem try to do a little research on the poet themselves. It is not strictly necessary but understanding a little about them and their background can provide some helpful context to the poem which can be useful in your analysis.
Use the button opposite to download a clean copy of the poem Storm on the Island by Seamus Heaney. Use this to mark up with your own notes using the analysis below.
About the poet - Seamus Heaney
- Heaney was an Irish poet, born in 1939.
- He grew up in a very rural setting in Northern Ireland and latterly lived in Dublin.
- He taught at Harvard University and served as Professor of Poetry at Oxford.
- He won the Nobel Prize in 1995 for ‘works of lyrical beauty’.
- Nature and identity were major themes for some of his early poetry.
By Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer – Seamus Heaney, Irish poet, [New York. 1995 Nobel Prize Winner], Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107283965
Background to the poem
- The poem is written about a group of Islands, the Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland.
- The weather on the islands can be bleak, and the islanders that live there need to be resilient and prepared.
- Another important aspect of the poem was the social unrest in Ireland, often referred to as ‘The Troubles’.
- For much of Heaney’s life there was an ongoing conflict between the Protestant and Catholic communities who disagreed on Northern Ireland’s position in the UK.
- This unrest included a significant period of violence where bombings and riots frequently occurred between the sides.
Image by Thomas Ulrich from Pixabay
What is the poem about?
- The themes of power and conflict are strong in this poem.
- On the face of it, the poem describes the island’s stormy climate and how the community has had to adapt to this. The strength of the storm comes through in Heaney’s descriptive use of language.
- However, the violent imagery that Heaney uses is an allegory for Ireland’s stormy political climate at the time the poem was written.
- Northern Ireland’s main government building is called ‘Stormont’ (the first eight letters of the title of the poem).
So now we know that the poem is about let’s analyse how Heaney uses poetic devices to tell his story.
Form and Structure
- The poem is an example of a dramatic monologue. It is written from the perspective of one person, in the style of a story being told to another. The person telling the story has all the power which can be seen to be representative of the imbalance of power between the storm and the islanders.
- There is no real rhyme scheme to the poem (only some half-rhyme); it is written in free verse which gives an impression of chaos.
- Within the poem there are lots of long and complex sentences which run across lines (enjambment). This makes the reader feel breathless and overwhelmed whilst they are reading it; almost as though they are caught up in the storm themselves.
- The poem appears on the page as rather short and squat – visually not unlike the cottages Heaney describes on the island: Heaney is painting a visual picture as well as a literary one.
- Much like many of Heaney’s poems the language used is very conversational. He uses everyday language which gives the events a feeling of normality; as though they have become an expected part of life. This contrasts strongly with the form of the poem; the free-verse and lack of rhyme scheme create chaos, but by using everyday language Heaney makes everything feel ‘normal’.
- This is echoed in the half-rhyme that Heaney uses within the first and last couplets. The first- and second-lines half-rhyme, as do the last two lines. This creates a cyclical structure which implies that once it has finished it will only start again; the storms will just keep on coming.
The rhythm of the poem is iambic pentameter, which means that every second syllable in a line is stressed.
Some say this is an unusual choice for a poem where the rest of the form and structure is about chaos. However, the use of iambic pentameter creates a clever juxtaposition; the storm is chaotic but the people controlled and ordered? Similarly, in a political sense the everyday conversational tone juxtaposes the strict iambic pentameter, which mirrors the differences between the Catholics and Protestants at the time of the troubles.
Language
- Heaney uses words like ‘squat’, ‘stacks’ and ‘stooks’ which are rough, rural terms which gives the poem an agricultural feel.
- Throughout the poem Heaney refers to ‘we’; rather than write in the first-person (‘I’). This shows he is referring not to an autobiographical experience, but rather something which impacts wider society. It gives a community feel to the poem.
- The use of ‘we’ also gives a sense of ‘them’ and ‘us’; referencing the conflicts between the storm and the islanders, as well as the Catholics (‘we’) and the protestants (‘them’).
- ‘We are prepared’ shows how the islanders (and the Irish community) have adapted to live with the chaos caused.
- ‘The wizened earth had never troubled us’ personifies the earth; like an old friend, like someone you can rely upon.
- Repetition of the word ‘company’ when referring to nature again shows how he is personifying nature.
- There is a distinction between nature in terms of the ‘land’ which is supportive and neighbourly (company) and nature as the weather, which is violent and brutal; ‘blows full blast’, ‘pummels’.
- ‘Exploding comfortably…’ is an oxymoronic term. The sea is brutal and violent as it explodes but nature (the cliffs) are protective and comforting.
- ‘Spits like a tame cat turned savage’. This use of a simile creates an image of something friendly and familiar (a tame cat) that can hurt us if we let down our defences or do not give it the respect it deserves.
- ‘Salvo’, ‘strafe’ and ‘bombarded’ are military terms used to describe an air attack. This draws comparison between the damage the wind causes to that which is experienced in battle.
- ‘Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear’. Another oxymoron which suggests that what we are afraid of is actually nothing; it is an invisible wind and so is nothing.
Themes and comparisons
If you’re presented with this poem in the exam you will be asked to compare it to one of the other poems from the anthology in some way. You may also decide to use it as the comparison poem. To do this you need to think about the themes that are presented in the poem and which other poems in the anthology have similar themes. We’ve summarised these briefly below.
Conflict
There are two elements to this: the conflict between the weather and the island as well as the subliminal references to the political unrest.
Compare to:
- London
- Charge of the Light Brigade
- Exposure
- Bayonet Charge
- Remains
- Poppies
- War Photographer
- Kamikaze
Power of nature
The storm is savage and batters the island. People are scared of it.
Compare to:
- Ozymandias
- Tissue
- The Prelude
- Exposure
- Bayonet Charge
Oppression
The islanders have become oppressed by the weather, as many that lived in Ireland throughout the troubles felt oppressed by the unrest there.
Compare to:
- Ozymandias
- Checking Out Me History
- London
- Charge of the Light Brigade
- My Last Duchess
- Charge of the Light Brigade
- Bayonet Charge
- Kamikaze
What next?
We hope you’ve found this analysis useful, but please remember that we all interpret things differently. Just because we’ve read it one way, does not that it can not have an alternative meaning. Remember that when you’re reading it through – you could pick up on something totally different and that’s fine. There is no right or wrong interpretation of a poem – as long as you can analyse and justify why the poem makes you feel a certain way then there are marks to be had in an exam.
We have prepared a PDF summary sheet containing all of the information on this page which you may find useful when revising. Use this when reading the poem again and make your own notes and highlights. You can download it by clicking on the link below.
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Other Resources
This is a list of resources we’ve found really useful as we’ve been researching. Some of these are free, but some are paid resources. Please note that we do not earn any commission if you choose to purchase using the links below. There’s also some more of our resources below for you to download.
- Mr Bruff – he has some great resources on YouTube and through his website mrbuff.com.
- Collins Snap Revision book from Amazon
- PoemAnalysis.com
- savemyexams.co.uk
- Tips on how to manage exam stress
- Tips on how to revise