Storm on the Island by Seamus Heaney

THEMES

VIOLENCE
NATURE

This poem focuses on the power of nature and how you have to be prepared to protect yourself against its destructive force.

"We are prepared"

Look at all the powerful, dynamic verbs used to show the movement and force of the storm.

"spits like a tamed cat turned savage"

There is also a semantic field of war, suggesting that the storm can be compared to a battle.

"dives and strafes" - this is what planes do and particularly war planes.

Consider what the fighting sides are - The people against nature? The IRA against the British?

Don't forget that the title could suggest the topic is the fighting in Ireland as it has the word STORMONT hidden in the title and this is the Irish parliament.

Good luck.

Paper 2

For this exam you'll need to revise the Poems from Other Cultures that you have studied all the way through the course.

Remember that your teacher will have focussed on poems from a specific CLUSTER. Don't fret if your friends are revising Cluster 1 and you've been taught Cluster 2!

You DO NOT need to bring your Anthology to this exam. Just like in the Lit exam, you'll be given a blank Anthology.

Really focus your revision on understanding the different perspectives the poets have on the key themes:

PEOPLE
PLACES
IDENTITY
LANGUAGE
VIOLENCE
NATURE

For section B in the paper, you will be asked to write a text which is broadly either descriptive or informative. Revise the key skills for these two styles of writing.

Good luck.

Paper 1

For any last minute questions before the exam!

Catrin

'Catrin' is a very powerful poem showing a mother's love for her daughter. Clarke shows her mixed emotions about her daughter, Catrin, expressing both unconditional love and also a desire to be an independent from her.

Languge devices to use in a Parent / Child relationships question.

Repetition of "I can remember you, child,", "I can remember you," shows that Clarke has a dominant position over Catrin who would be unable to remember her own birth.

Alliteration highlights Clarke's honest depiction of the painful birthing experience between her self and Catrin "our first Fierce confrontation," and links this physical confrontation to other verbal confrontations they will have later on.

A metaphor is used to show how the umbilical cord can be symbolic of their love. "the tight Red rope of love which we both Fought over." Interesting use of rope as ropes can be used to tightly bind things together, keep things trapped or used to rescue people (from drowning or falling). See her reference later to the "old rope" and the fact that she feels it restricts her "Tightening about my life".

Clarke uses an oxymoron to depict the birthing experience "wild, tender circles" Interesting line as it juxtaposes 'wild' and 'tender' whilst also hinting at a circle of life 'circle'.

Great use of enjambment in the line "Of our struggle to become/Separate." Sums up the complex parent child relationship that whilst having strong love, there is also clearly a desire to maintain individuality and autonomy.

Clarke uses punchy, short rhythmic sentences to show this disjointed, bumpy relationship in the line "We want, we shouted,To be two, to be ourselves."

Another example of brutal honesty in the line "Still I am fighting/You off". To depict the birth as a fight is a semantic field throughout the poem. Look for other violent language.

Clarke shows deep admiration for her daughter with her use of a string of adjectives "With your straight, strong, long/Brown hair and your rosy/Defiant glare" Clarke recognises all the good and bad qualities of her daughter.

Oxymoronic line towards the end sums up the complex parent child relationship "love and conflict"

A half true, half symbolic comment at the end where Clarke says Catrin has asked to "skate/In the dark, for one more hour" shows how Clarke is always faced with difficult situations to resolved with her daughter and how Catrin is too brave and bold for Clarke to hold down.

Miss D

Death of a Naturalist

Death of a Naturalist - S. Heaney.

All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.


Innocence of nature and childhood memories:

“Bubbles gargled delicately” – like a Disney film, personification.

“shade of the banks” – imagery: we are protected as children.

“jampotfuls of the jellied / Specks to range on window-sills at home,/On shelves at school” – alliteration, emphasizing vivid childhood memories of nature in a nuturing, learning environment.

“burst into nimble-/Swimming tadpoles” – power of a life essence, the word burst is fairly onomatopoeic, emphasizing the speed of growth and the energy of youth.

“daddy frog was called a bullfrog / And how he croaked” –idiosyncratic (typical) of an adult way of explaining nature to a young person. Nicely patronizing.

Death and destruction in nature and adulthood.

Semantic field of words associated with pain and destruction – “festered”, “rotted” , “punishing”, “rank”, “vengeance”.


“In rain” , “Before” - brilliant uses of enjambment to highlight the change from happiness in childhood to pain in adulthood.

“great slime kings”, “angry frogs” – compare these to the nimble tadpoles from the first stanza. Personification.

War imagery, showing violence in nature “Invaded”, “slap and plop were obscene threats”, “Poised like mud grenades”.

Choice of negative imagery to do with adulthood: “loose necks pulsed like sails” showing ageing and loss of beauty.

Threat of adulthood looming is highlighted by the power of three in “I sickened, turned, and ran” and in the personification of the frogspawn as a violent predator lurking “if I dipped my hand, the spawn would clutch it”.

Comparing poems.

Here are some suggestions - this is not an exhaustive list. See your exercise book for more.

This is a mixture of key poems from the higher and foundation tier.

Nature.

Death of a Naturalist - The Field Mouse - Sonnet.

Danger/Tension.

Storm on the Island - At a Potato Digging- The Field Mouse - On the Train - A Difficult Birth - The Affliction of Margaret (tension)

Parent/Child relationships.

Digging - Follower - Catrin - Babysitting - On my First Sonne - The Affliction of Margaret.

Patrolling Barnegat - Walt Whitman

This poem is an unusual sonnet (14 lines) written with an AA rhyme scheme throughout.



The poem is set on a beach on a stormy, wintry night. Someone, presumably the poet, is walking alone along the beach through driving snow, looking out to sea across the wild waves. Through the dark, snow and spray he is not quite sure what he sees - possibly a shipwreck, and a distress signal - then what seems to be a group of walkers, braving the storm. There is a real sense of danger and fear.

- GCSE BITESIZE

Whitman could be saying that "love is like walking along a snowy beach": beaches are usually places of fun and relaxation, but now this one is described as a haunting place which is difficult to walk along.

Use this poem to compare with other poems about danger (Storm on the Island etc) and other poem about nature (Sonnet, Death of a Naturalist, The Field Mouse).

Hope this helps.

Mid Term Break - Seamus Heaney.

"Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple"

There is plenty to say about this quote.

i) the fact that the word 'wearing' suggests something Heaney thinks is temporary and not part of his brother.

ii) 'poppy' is linked with rememberance, reverance, celebration and a sense of loss, grief and suffering.

iii) the specific 'on his left temple' shows how closely Heaney is scrutinising the body - a childlike, inquisitive mind.

Sonnet - John Clare

Sonnet - John Clare.

Comparable with Death of a Naturalist (HEANEY) and The Field Mouse (CLARKE) as they all deal with nature as a key topic/theme.

Sonnet and Death...

i) Nature is celebrated."...the summer beaming forth" (S)

and

"Bubbles gargled delicately..."(DoaN)

ii) Both tell of a personal reaction to nature as they are both in the first person, "I".

iii) Unlike Sonnet, Death...shows a negative side to nature. As we grow older we lose our infatuation with nature.

Sonnet stays postitive until the end."bright beetles" (S)

and

"obscene threats" (DoaN)

Sonnet and The Field Mouse.

i) Sonnet deals with a very limited scene, it is highly focused."the clear deep lake" (S)

Whereas The Field Mouse mentions wider settings.

"Summer in Europe" (TFM)

You could say John Clare is indulging himself in his poetry whilst Clarke is writing with a more global purpose/message.

ii)Sonnet uses very simple descriptions with little to analyse for deeper meaning (typical Romantic style).

"reed clumps rustle like a wind shook wood" (S)

Whereas in The Field Mouse, there is plenty to read with deeper meaning."The wrong that wokefrom a rumour of pain won't heal..." (TFM)

Overall, think about Sonnet as a poem about nature and think of the other two as having wider implications. They simply USE nature as a medium to discuss growing up (Death...) and the Bosnian War (The Field Mouse...).

Not to confuse matters, some say Sonnet has a sub text about freedom since Clare escaped from the mental asylum the year he wrote this. In this case, you could say that Sonnet is about freedom and being alive whereas in the other two poems, there is a focus on death and being restricted.

In terms of comparing quotes, look at the semantic field (groups of similar vocabulary) in all three poems. Sonnet is filled with positive vocabulary; Death... has some positive, some negative; The Fied Mouse has almost all negative vocabulary.

Hope this helps.

Danger in Of Mice and Men

DANGER (think also THREAT, TENSION, STRIFE, AGRESSION...)

i) Curley and his behaviour towards the other men. His presence in a room is often accompanied by feelings of uneasiness and tension.

ii) The fight scene with Curley and Lennie. The fact that Lennie holds back from fighting until George gives him the go ahead builds tension and a sense of impending violence.

iii) The way Curley's wife is presented as a dangerous character - a siren (see below). She is the ultimate 'jail bait'; she wears red which is symbolic of danger; she creates a reason for Lennie to get into trouble because she has soft, tactile hair and clothing. Her function in the novel is to destroy the dream and therefore she is built up as a dangerous character.

SIREN - a mythical seductress who would lure sailors to their doom by making them crash on the shore.

Overall, there is a feeling of danger because all these men are living in close, tense quarters with people they don't know, there is the threat of poverty around every corner and the danger that, because of the Depression, your job may not be there in the morning.

Literature exam

Revision for next week:

Why not get a friend or family member to test you on Of Mice and Men?

Make a list of the themes and characters and get them to pick one for you at random.

You then have 5 mins to write down or tell them what you know.


Another idea: give them your anthology and get them to read out a line from a poem at random.

You have to identify which poem it is, who it is by and then explain the line.

Good luck.

Keep checking for more revision help.

Digging

Digging is a poem about Seamus Heaney feeling he can't follow in his father's work as a farm labourer. He says he does have a skill which is as important: he can write. Throughout the poem he admires his father and his grandfather for their skills and although he doesn't have a spade to "follow men like them", he does have his pen so he will "dig with it".

Lit paper

• The Literature exam has two sections: Section A is "Of Mice and Men" and Section B is "Poetry from Heaney, Clarke and the Pre-1914 poets".

• OF MICE AND MEN: Revision.

1. Make sure you know the novel well and can easily find key sections such as the death of Curley's Wife.
2. Make sure you understand who each character is and what role they play in the novel.
3. Revise the key themes (DREAMS, LONELINESS, VIOLENCE, NATURE etc).
4. Practise writing a paragraph on each theme, using a quote from the novel.
5. Re-read your notes in your exercise book.

• Poetry (Heaney, Clarke, Pre-1914): Revision.

- Re-read all the poems you have studied so far.

- Concentrate on your key poems for each cluster. These are:

Higher Paper:

Heaney - At a Potato Digging, Storm on the Island, Digging, Death of a Naturalist.

Clarke - Cold, Knap Lake, A Difficult Birth, Catrin, The Field Mouse.

Pre 1914 - Patrolling Barnegat, The Affliction of Margaret, On My First Sonne, Sonnet.

Foundation Paper:

Heaney - Mid Term Break, Follower, Digging, Death of a Naturalist.

Clarke - Babysitting, On the train, Catrin, The Field Mouse.

Pre 1914 - The Eagle, Song of the Old Mother, On My First Sonne, Sonnet.

- Carefully look at your annotations and make sure you understand what each poem is about.

- Make sure you can identify three or four key images in each poem.

- Remind yourself of the key themes (NATURE, VIOLENCE, PARENT/CHILD, DEATH, LOVE).

- Practise comparing two or three poems at once. Always give quotes and examples from a few poems in a paragraph.

Any questions? Just add a post.

Blog welcome.

Welcome to the Manor School English blog.