The physical environments in ‘London’ and ‘Storm on the Island’ are both
described by first-person narrators who lead us through each setting. Blake’s
poem opens with the speaker walking through the London streets, his even stride
suggested by the regular rhythm and ABAB rhyme scheme of the opening
verses. Heaney’s speaker also uses the present tense to give his/her
surroundings a feeling of immediacy. Both poems also explore the way each of
these environments helps to shape the lives of their inhabitants and, in both
cases, focus on the harmful effects felt by the people living there.
In ‘London’, Blake’s speaker paints a dystopian vision of the city where people
live harsh, miserable, stunted lives. The use of repetition (“In every… In every…”)
and parallelism (“marks of… marks of”) creates a feeling of relentless,
inescapable suffering felt by all Londoners. Blake’s combination of visual and
aural imagery to describe the sights and sounds of London also helps to capture
the pain felt by its inhabitants. The first two verses build up to Blake revealing
one of the causes of people’s suffering: “the mind-forged manacles”. This image
emphasises the psychological pressures felt by Londoners in their urban
environment. There is a lack of freedom connoted by the use of “manacles”,
linking to the repetition of “chartered” in the opening verse which suggested that
the lives of Londoners, and even the flow of the river itself, are restricted or
inhibited.
In the third verse, Blake condemns the institutions which help to make
Londoners’ lives so miserable – the Church and the State. He uses the
nightmarish image of “blood” running down the “palace walls” to evoke the
suffering of soldiers sent to fight for their country and also describes the
“black’ning church” which allows child chimney-sweepers to suffer in terrible
working conditions. This image of the “black’ning church” helps to highlight the
pollution generated by increasing industrialisation but also symbolises the
hypocrisy which stains the reputation of the church.
The poem ends with more bleak imagery. Things which are meant to provide joy
such as marriage or raising a family are here described as causing more
suffering. Blake’s final image of the “marriage hearse” acts as a striking
oxymoron – an act which is supposed to promise new life instead only promises
death. The “youthful harlot’s curse” shows how young women are exploited and
also perhaps suggests the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, again
presenting London to be place a which torments its inhabitants.
In ‘London’ there is a feeling of isolation, with everyone detached from everyone
else, but in ‘Storm on the Island’ Heaney immediately creates a feeling of
community and collective action by using the plural pronoun, “we”. The short
sentence which begins the poem (“We are prepared”) evokes an attitude of
confidence and determination, again contrasting with the atmosphere of fear and
despair in ‘London’.
One similarity with ‘London’ is that the environment is seen as bleak and
unwelcoming. The earth is “wizened” suggesting emptiness and barrenness, an
impression reinforced by the lack of any trees on the island which might provide
some shelter. However, the inhabitants of the island are able to influence their
environment in a way that Blake’s Londoners cannot. The list of three verbs (“We
build… sink… roof”) again shows the collective effort made to protect themselves
from their harsh environment and helps to create a feeling of calmness and
security in the opening lines.
However, when the storm arrives, Heaney uses a range of methods to capture
the sensations of violence and chaos. He uses caesuras at the beginning of lines
to mimic the sudden bursts from the storm (“But no: when it begins…”) and
employs the imagery of warfare (“exploding… strafes… salvo… bombarded”) to
suggest the islanders as under attack from its environment. Personification also
helps to bring the storm alive (“spits like a tame cat / Turned savage”) with the
repetition of the ‘s’ and ‘t’ sound creating an aggressive, violent atmosphere.
While ‘London’ ended with images of pain, misery and death, the ending of
‘Storm on the Island’ is more reflective, with the speaker mulling over the
“strange” thought that the wind is simply “empty air” and that, as a result, “it is a
huge nothing that we fear”. While this could be reassuring to some readers,
others may be more troubled by the poem ending with the word “fear”. Although
the narrator knows he and his community will be safe, the violence of the storm
and the extreme nature of their environment means that they are always wary of
how the elements can turn against them.
