Question

200 words appreciation of the poem 'Blowin' in the Wind' by Bob Dylan

Answer 1

In these lines, the poet throws light on the belief system prevailing those days. It was believed that a boy can become a man only after going to war. Showing his disagreement with this belief asks ‘how many roads’ i.e. how many times a person would be required to fight wars so that he may be called a man. Another interpretation of this stanza can be as follows. The poet wonders how much life experiences a person has to suffer in order to be called a man. In other words, he wants to say that it is too much that the society demands from a person.

In the next line, the poet raises another rhetoric question asking ‘how many seas must a white dove sail’ i.e. how many times the war will be fought before achieving peace. Sleeping in the sand refers to the fact that there is no war. In these lines, the poet uses the phrase “sleeps in the sand” as a reference to the passage in the Bible that describes the incident of Noah’s sending the doves out to find land after the flooding of the earth. He was searching for a place to land and rest.

In the third line. the poet asks how many times the weapons will be used before they might be totally banned. In other words, the poet says that we have fought enough wars and they should be ended now. The poet says that the answer to all of the questions he raised in the verses above lies in the winds, i.e. the answer does exist that is waiting for someone to grab it. But the problem is that nobody troubles to quest for those answers.

Answer 2

The poem seem to raise certain rhetorical questions relating to factors like war, peace and freedom. During those periods, war factor had been emphatic but prevalent violent negativities remained concealed and latent. Queries still remain unsolved. The mountains symbolised the ego factors of warriors. Let us recollect the poetical verses of the poet Langston Hughes ‘’I dream a world where man, no other man will scorn, where love will bless the earth and peace its path adorn ‘

one of the most profound meanings from Dylan's song is the idea of embracing the unending questions that plague who we are and what we do. In a setting where individuals are consistently searching for answers which seem elemental, but hardly are, Dylan's lyrics remind us of the fundamental challenges of being who we are in where we live. For example, "How many years can some people exist/ Before they're allowed to be free?" is a great instance where we, as human beings, understand the need to be free, but also questions our tolerance for enslavement of others. The implication in the song is that we, as individuals, are confronted with situations where our own sense of change is needed, and for this, we seek to find answers, solutions whose presence "is blowing in the wind."