1. GCSE Literature Seamus Heaney
Teacher-of-English.com
Storm on the Island
GCSE Literature Seamus Heaney

2. Social and Historical Context
Slide Contents
Author
What is it About?
Language
Structure
Themes
Social and Historical Context
Links

3. Author

4. Seamus Heaney
Seamus Heaney was born in Northern Ireland in 1939, the eldest of nine children. His father was a farmer in rural County Derry and much of Heaney's poetry is about the countryside and farm life of his childhood. At the age of 12 Heaney won a scholarship to the boarding school of St Columb's College in the city of Derry, forty miles from his rural home.

5. What is it About?

6. Click image for a reading with slides
Storm on the Island
The poem describes the experience of being in a cliff top cottage on an island off the coast of Ireland during a storm. Heaney describes the ground, the sea and the wind. The people in the cottage are isolated and can do nothing against the powerful and violent weather. The poem describes the violent side of nature. Similar to Patrolling Barnegat nature is “savage” and hostile and like Whitman, Heaney uses a series of military metaphors: the wind (like a fighter-bomber) “dives and strafes” while space is a “salvo” and air “bombards” the islanders.
The poem explains that the island dwellers build their houses small and “squat” - but when the storm breaks, they can do nothing but “sit tight”. The wind is so powerful that the sea spray hits “the very windows” of the houses. Heaney conveys the unpredictability of nature through the simile of a cat - much of the time it is “company” (friendly) and “tame” (safe) but in the storm it turns “savage” and “spits”.

7. What’s going on? Lines What Happens? 1 - 5
In this poem Heaney describes the violence of a storm as it hits a small island community but can you say exactly what is happening?
Lines
What Happens?
1 - 5
Heaney describes how the community prepares for the storm
6 - 13

8. What’s going on? Lines What Happens? 1 - 5
In this poem Heaney describes the violence of a storm as it hits a small island community but can you say exactly what is happening?
Lines
What Happens?
1 - 5
Heaney describes how the community prepares for the storm
6 - 13
There is a change in tone from safety to danger. The violence and noise of the storm is described.
The fear of the islanders is conveyed through images of war.

9. Check Your Understanding
How much do you know about Seamus Heaney and the poem Storm on the Island?
Where are many of Heaney’s poems set?
What happened to Heaney at the age of 12?
How do the islanders prepare for the storm?
What other poem from the anthology describes a storm at sea?
What animal is the storm compared to?
Why is the animal simile effective?
What words suggest that the storm-hit island is like a battle zone?

10. Language & Structure

11. Glossary Match the vocabulary from the poem
with the correct definition:
wizened (line 3) bombard with artillery shells
stacks / stooks (lines 4/5) continuous firing of artillery
strafes (line 17) dried up & shrivelled
salvo (line 17) haystacks / bundles of corn

12. Glossary How many did you work out correctly?
wizened (line 3) dried up & shrivelled
stacks / stooks (lines 4/5) haystacks / bundles of corn
strafes (line 17) bombard with artillery shells
salvo (line 17) Continuous firing of artillery

13. Language
Storm on the Island is full of images of fear and violence. Although the poem begins with images of safety and security (‘we are prepared’) the tone changes from line 6 and a sense of loneliness and fear takes over. Nature becomes violent as the usually pleasant trees and the sea become frightening and dangerous forces. To emphasise the violence of the storm Heaney uses descriptive words and phrases usually associated with war such as blast, bombarded, salvo, etc. To involve the reader in his fear of the storm the poet uses direct address (2nd person) ‘you’ throughout to bring us closer to the experience.

14. Imagery Quote Explanation
Find examples from the poem which suggest that the storm is like an enemy attack.
Quote
Explanation
It pummels your house
The word pummel means to hit somebody or something with repeated blows, this conveys the image of the house being attacked by an aggressive force.

15. Poetic Techniques Match the technique with the correct definition.
Technique Definition
Simile Using as or like to compare two things
(her eyes shone like diamonds)
Metaphor The use of the same letter at the start of words
(the sea sizzled on the sandy shore)
Alliteration A figure of speech not meant literally (I was over the moon)
Onomatopoeia describing an object as if it had human qualities (The lonely crippled tree)
Personification A word which imitates the sound it represents
(smash, crack, plop)

16. Poetic Techniques Technique Evidence Effect Alliteration
Think about the poetic techniques used in the poem. Copy down the chart below. Find examples in the poem and write down the effect created.
Technique
Evidence
Effect
Alliteration
‘rock and roof’
Repetition of the strong ‘r’ sound emphasises the solidity and sturdiness of the houses.
personification
metaphor
simile

17. Structure
The structure of the poem Storm on the Island reflects the feelings of the islanders. At first the community feels safe and secure and words such as ‘prepared’, ‘rock' and ‘good slate' convey this sense of solidity and assurance.
However as the storm begins, feelings of security are eclipsed by fear; the trees raise a ‘tragic chorus’, the sea is ‘exploding’ and there is ‘no natural shelter’.
By the end of the poem the people appear helpless, isolated and at the mercy of the elements, waiting and hoping for the storm to end. There is is a clear contrast between the solid reassurance of the first few lines and the fear of a terrifying invisible force at the end – ‘It is a huge nothing that we fear.’

18. Themes

19. Comparative Themes Nature
Heaney writes about how nature can be cruel and destructive. The strength of the storm is conveyed through the use of images of war and the people in the poem appear weak and vulnerable. Heaney explores how nature can turn on humans unexpectedly “like a tame cat / Turned savage”.
Other poems which explore the relationship between man and nature are Patrolling Barnegat, At a Potato Digging, Digging and The Field Mouse.

20. Comparative Themes Politics
Storm on the Island contains a metaphor for the political storm that raged across Northern Ireland in the second half of the twentieth century. The storm pummelling the island in the poem is a metaphor for the violence in Northern Ireland.
Other poems which explicitly explore politics are The Field Mouse and A Difficult Birth.

21. Social & Historical Context

22. The poem has a hidden meaning do you know what it is?
Storm on the Island
The poem has a hidden meaning do you know what it is?
On another level Storm on the Island refers to the troubles in Northern Ireland that took place in the latter years of the twentieth century. Images of terrorist violence can be found throughout the poem. Words such as blast, exploding, fear, bombarded don’t just describe the literal storm but also represent the storm of violence happening in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. The first 8 letters of the poem spell out the word Stormont – the name of the Government buildings of Northern Ireland in Belfast. The word island also has an obvious phonetic similarity to the word Ireland. Therefore the poem works on two levels: as a description of a storm and as an extended metaphor for the political situation in Northern Ireland.

23. Causes for the Conflict between the Protestants and the Catholics of Northern Ireland
Divided Loyalties
Education
Employment
Housing
Voting Rights

24. Divided Loyalties
During the troubles Protestant and Catholics were intolerant of one another. Each gave their allegiance to different countries. Protestants wanted to continue to be part of the United Kingdom whereas Catholics wanted Northern Ireland reunited with the Republic of Ireland. Protestants feared the idea of union with the Republic of Ireland and believed that
Catholics would not be tolerant of Protestant beliefs. Catholics could not forget the persecution they suffered during England’s conquest of Ireland and deeply mistrust the Protestants.

29. Tensions Turn to Violence
The building tensions in Northern Ireland resulted in conflict and violence. Homes were petrol-bombed and looted, businesses and pubs were burnt and destroyed. The IRA was an illegal organisation formed by the Northern Irish Catholics to use violence to rid Northern Ireland of the British Army and the representatives of the British government. Within 2 decades of the conflict , many people were killed. The conflict resulted in many deaths involving innocent victims an increasing number of people growing up with intense prejudice towards each other and an adverse development on the economic and social landscape of the country.

31. Click here for video

32. Links

33. Useful Stuff BBC Bitesize:
Podcast reading and discussion:
Go to and
click on ‘Storm on the Island’.
Pupils can download this onto ipod/MP3 player for revision purposes
YouTube contains a lot of footage from the Troubles but please be careful - a lot of it is very partisan.