Storm Warnings questions
Questions on "Storm Warnings" by Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich's poem "Storm Warnings" deals with the idea that a person
sometimes knows that emotional pain intends to intrude into his or her life. Like
a physical storm, the person can see the approach but do nothing to actually
stop or prevent the storm from happening --"Between foreseeing and averting
change / Lies all the mastery of elements / Which clocks and weatherglasses
cannot alter." One's ability to foresee a crisis does nothing to alter the
inevitability of the crisis.
1. Who is speaking?
a) someone who is on a ship
b) someone who is a weather forecaster
c) someone who is preparing for a storm
d) all of the above
e) none of the above
2. What is the glass being spoken of in the 1st stanza?
a) a temperature guage
b) a barometer
c) broken windows
d) none of these
3. What is the silent core of waiting?
a) the center of the storm
b) the wait before the storm
c) the quiet before the turmoil
d) all of these
e) none of these
4. In the last sentence of the 2nd stanza, what is being compared?
a) weather in polar regions compared to time
b) tropical storms compared to polar storms
c) the effects of weather on people compared to the effect on things
d) the weather storms compared to emotional storms
e) a & d
5. In stanza 3, the speaker speaks of the "mastery of elements" but concludes
we can only:
a) prevent storms
b) predict storms
c) prepare for storms
d) all of these
e) b & c
6. "Aperture" means
a) small openings
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Storm Warnings questions
b) attachments
c) windows
7. What is the speaker's "troubled regions"?
a) location
b) problems
c) neither a or b
d) both a & b
8. The moment is
a) a storm
b) a problem
c) reading a book
d) fall
9. The message is
a) weather is uncontrollable
b) weather is predictable
c) troubles are uncontrollable
d) troubles are sometimes predictable
e) a & b
f) c & d
10. Which of the following is a metaphor?
a) "What winds are walking overhead"
b) "watching boughs strain against the sky"
c) "Time in the hand is not control of time"
d) "This is the sole defense against the season"
Select a literary work which you have read on your own or studied in class and
relate the idea that sometimes one knows the storm is coming but he can do
nothing to avoid it to one of the characters in the novel or short story. You may
take "storm warnings" literally, as in the character faced the physical elements,
or metaphorically, as in the character faced emotional or psychological storms.
You do not need to explicate the poem, but do mention the title and author and
the idea of the poem briefly. Also quote the passage of the poem to which you
are relating your character.
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