The passage from Star of the Sea was written by Joseph O’Connor. It is a piece of narrative prose which takes place on a passenger ship. The passage is written in a third-person subjective narrative mode. The passage is takes place at a point in the storyline as the ship is passing through a violent storm at sea, which portrays the forces of nature The passage starts with a sense of an atmosphere, “The music of the ship was howling around him.
” This sentences is very filled with visual and auditory imagery.The opening sentence creates a feeling of a fast-paced rhythm in its brief expression. The pace reflects the craziness of flooding rain and surging sea. The metaphor of the ship’s “music… howling” brings an auditory imagery which symbolizes the storm, which overwhelms the singular pronoun “him” just as the storm overwhelms the Star of the Sea.
As well Nature overwhelms the Man. “The low whistling; the tortured rumbles; the wheezy sputters of breeze flowing through it” gives a sharp feeling with its short phrases, which gives the sentence certain rhythm.The repetition of similar vowels (“whistling”, “wheezy”, “breeze”) creates a hollow sound that are similar to that of a gust of wind at sea. All of a sudden there is a quickness and urgency that is showed in the use of the present progressive tense: “Rolling. Foaming.
Rushing. Surging. ” The repetition of the ending “ing” and the similarly short, onomatopoeic verbs create the image of rapid increase and decrease. The sounds of these words recreate the loud surges of rushing water.The waves begin to grow and this can be seen by the increasing amount of consonants (“thicken”, “swell”, “strength”), and now it is a “battlement… almost crumpling against its own weight, the metaphor of the sea as a “battlement” compares it to the structure of defense. It is like the water is waging war against the boat and almost overcoming itself in its own power.
The metaphors of war become more common as the comparison of the Star of the Sea to a war horse, “bucking” in retaliation to the sea’s attack upon the boat.The crash of the waters upon the frail passenger boat is compared, through simile (“Like a punch thrown by an invisible god”). The invisible god represents the way of Nature. Nature is like God, when it leaves Man awe struck when the Man is engulfed. The people of the boat feel the strength when Nature strikes the boat; “He was aware of being flung backwards, into the edge of a bench, the dull crack of metal against the base of his spine”.
The onomatopoeic expressions “flung” and “crack” created by auditory imagery the intensity at which he is thrown, the harsh consonants reflect the brutality of the descriptive noise of his spine hitting the metal of the bench. The ship is very noisy. The ship itself makes a sound just like the waves. The voice of the ship reminds me of someone screaming for help. “The ship creaked violently” and then when the ship went into defensive strategy in a weak attempt to combat nature, “pitched into a tilt, downing slowly.In this defense mode the ship almost overthrew its own passengers, which suggests to a previous image of the bucking horse knocking over its rider.
A commotion takes place on board which creates a chaotic image of fear and panic, by the highly emotive description “clamor of terrified screams”, a “hail of cups and splintering plates”, a “starboard [lifeboat] snapped… and swung loose like a mace, shattering through the wall of the wheelhouse”, all the adjectives gave a incredible amount of consonants which mirror the loud chaos aboard the ship and illustrating how violently the Man-made objects are able to be destroyed.The visual imagery of the “hail” of cups, the “splintering plates” and the lifeboat as a “mace”, a weapon of battle which has now turned on its own creator, symbolizes, and ‘how vulnerable Man is compared to the wrath of Nature. The consonants become more shrill with the next words when the boat squeals a “shredding skreek” as it begins to correct itself from leaning over to one side. A sense of helplessness and desperation is brought through the portrayal of the lady screaming in terror, “grasping”, “clutching”.The words “grasping” and “clutching” are used in an horrifying way because the woman is literally “grasping” and “clutching” to pull herself back onto the deck of the boat, and also she is “grasping” and “clutching” for life.
Her life depends on it because beyond the edge of the boar lies the sea, life or death. Dixon who I believe is the pronoun “he” is a passenger who is “gripping the slimy life-rope”, literally he is holding on to a slippery rope which also depends on his life.Almost abruptly there is a change in the atmosphere to a feeling of eeriness. The ordered calmness beneath the top deck, “Two stewards were in the passageway distributing canisters of soup.
Passengers were to retire to their rooms and stay there. ” In conclusion, the passage from Star of the Sea, written by Joseph O’Connor, is a dramatic, evocative piece of narrative prose taking place aboard a passenger ship when a ship goes through a powerful storm.
