Storm on the Island Literary Elements

The speaker is a resident, or a group of residents, of the island referred to in the title. They use the pronoun "we" most of the time.

A single nineteen-line stanza with iambic pentameter (sometimes published as a four-stanza poem)

The simile stating that the storm "spits like a tame cat/Turned savage" evokes the simultaneous willfulness and wildness of the storm, rendering it more tangible.

The metaphor "Space is a salvo" pictures empty space into a volley of gunfire, alerting readers to the paradox at the heart of the storm—its simultaneous incorporeality and power.

Heaney makes heavy use of alliteration throughout, including in phrases like "build our houses squat,/Sink walls in rock and roof them with good slate," in which both S and R sounds are repeated and alternated. The repeated "S" sounds in the line "space is a salvo," which are not divided or interspersed with any other consonants, create a whispering sound and an ethereal tone.

The phrase "raise a tragic refrain" uses repeated "ai" vowels, while "the flung spray hits/The very windows, spits like a tame cat," does the same with short "I" sounds.

The poem's central irony is, as the speaker points out, the nature of the storm itself: while it can't be seen and hardly has a physical form, it can still stir up fear and wreak havoc. In fact, it may be all the more frightening precisely because it is so indefinable.

Lyric poetry

A remote, desolate island facing a devastating storm

Spare, confident, and practical, though in its final lines the poem's tone is instead reflective

The protagonists are the island-dwellers, while the antagonist is the storm itself.

The major conflict is between the storm and the islanders whose lives and homes it threatens. The poem has been interpreted as a metaphorical commentary on bloodshed in Northern Ireland, in which case the conflict can be understood as one between the people of Ireland, or else between the people of Ireland and colonial powers in Britain.

The poem's climax comes in its final lines, when the speaker's tone shifts to one of contemplation. Here, the speaker begins to muse about the very nature of the storm. The sudden shift in tone, and in the relationship between speaker and listener, is itself a climactic turn.

The phrase "We are prepared" in the poem's first line foreshadows the later event for which preparation is necessary—that is to say, the storm.

The phrase "we just sit tight" is an understatement, its mild-sounding verb phrase almost comically avoiding mention of the external chaos and internal anxiety islanders face in the storm.

Though the poem has no direct allusions, it can be read as an extended allusion to Irish politics and conflict, especially in Northern Ireland. The similarity between the words "island" and "Ireland" is perhaps the closest Heaney comes to any explicit allusion.

Nature, and the storm in particular, are personified here, with increasing intensity and explicitness as the storm becomes more threatening. The phrase "the wizened earth has never troubled us" is an early example of subtler personification. Later, Heaney compares the storm to a spitting cat, in a simile that also personifies the storm and lends it the appearance of both physicality and consciousness. In the poem's last lines, Heaney personifies the wind with the verbs "dives" and "strafes," linking it to images of an attacking army and making it appear malicious, intentional, and skilled.

The phrase "So that you listen to the thing you fear/Forgetting that it pummels your house too," is hyperbolic: the speaker does not literally mean that the island's people will forget about the storm, but rather that they will be distracted from it.

The contained, short words at the start of the poem, such as "squat" and "rock," onomatopoetically evoke the island's preparation and practicality. In the poem's middle, words like "blast," with their plosive sounds, call to mind the storm's destruction. At its end, softer sounds, as in the word "nothing," are onomatopoetic representations of contemplation.