The Prelude

The Prelude

1. Storm on the Island

   • The power of nature to terrify us
     • "a huge peak, black and huge"
     • "the grim shape towered up between me and the stars"
       • Personification of the "huge peak". E.g "upreared its head", "growing still" and "strode after me"
         • Makes nature seem threatening and cruel
           • Forboding, frightening and sinister tone/atmosphere
     • "in grave and serious mood"
     • "there hung a darkness, call it solitude or blank desertion"
     • "no familiar shapes remained, no pleasant images of trees"
     • "huge and might forms, that do not live like living men, moved slowly through my mind by day, and were trouble to my dreams"
       • Enjambement makes the poem seem breathless, and the events unstoppable
         • Reflects the characters panic and fear and makes nature seem more terrifying
     • "leaves and branches can raise a tragic chorus in a gale"
     • "so that you can listen to the thing you fear forgetting that it pummels your house too"
     • "spits like a tame cat turned savage"
       • Simile shows how the storm is wild and uncontrolable
     • "We are bombarded by the empty air. Strange, it is a huge nothing that we fear"
       • Personification of nature makes it seem threatening and cruel
         • Unerving tone/atmosphere

2. Kamikaze

   • The beauty of nature
     • "small circles glittering idly in the moon"
       • Beautify natural imagery used to convey the beauty of nature
     • "heaving through the water like a swan"
       • Similes used to convey the beauty of nature
     • "little fishing boats strung out like bunting on a green-blue translucent sea"
     • "pearl grey pebbles"
     • "cloud marked mackerel"
     • "A little boat tied to a willow tree"
     • "melted all into one track of sparkling light"
   • The influence of nature on people
     • "It was an act of stealth and troubled pleasure"
       • Oxymoron/juxposition
         • Demonstrates the characters contrasting feelings about nature
     • "nothing but the stars and the grey sky"
     • "heaving through the water like a swan"
     • "he must have looked far down at the little fishing boats strung out like bunting on a green-blue translulent sea"
       • The poem juxtaposes beatiful imagery with dark and negitive imagery
         • Reflects the inner conflict of the character as he tries to come to terms with his contrasting feelings
       • "he must have wondered which had been the better way to die"
     • "the dark prince, muscular and dangerous"
     • "salt-sodden, awash with cloud-marked mackerel"
       • Associates his family with nature, which is what brings him home
         • Beauty of nature caused the pilot to act on impulses and emotions, and forget how society would veiw him when he returned

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