Home › Glossary › Letter K

Krakatoa

Historical Location
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

A volcanic island in Indonesia, famous for its catastrophic eruption in 1883.

Detailed Definition
Krakatoa is a proper name for a volcanic island whose eruption became one of the most famous natural disasters of the 19th century. In the poem, it helps intensify the image of the tomatoes by comparing their redness to volcanic fire.
Example
Example in poetry:
“Tomatoes, redder than Krakatoa’s fire,” compares ordinary color with the 1883 volcano’s legendary eruption; “Krakatoa’s ash darkened noon” invokes catastrophe and atmospheric scale; “The sea remembers Krakatoa” personifies a historical site of volcanic violence; A modern ecological poem might call a wildfire “a small Krakatoa at the ridge” as a deliberately hyperbolic simile
Additional Notes
The name in "Krakatoa's fire" refers to a specific place many readers may not immediately recognize.; Found in the poem, Sight by Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
Also Known As
volcanic island eruption site explosive landform geological wonder
Skip to main content