Critical analysis of poem wind
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Analysis of Wind
Wind is an evocative mix of powerful language and stunning imagery. It could be construed as a simple human versus nature poem but there is a slight twist near the end which throws this basic theme up into the air.
From the first line the reader is taken into the dramatic world of the first person speaker, the initial image being that of a vessel far out at sea, isolated by the all encompassing violence of the strong wind.
With onomatopoeia and other poetic devices, the poem progresses through a timeline totally controlled by nature - the wind just doesn't let go, it forces itself into the life of this individual and his partner/friend/relative.
Not only humans are affected. Even the birds are subject to this elemental battering, a magpie being flung, whilst a gull is bent like an iron bar, an incredible image, a forceful simile.
The internal rhymes and echoes reinforce the idea of a connected world, despite the destructive nature of the gale....
house/floundering...booming/through...brunt/dented/tent/drummed....bang/flap/black/back....green/deep.
It's together with harsh accent and snappy vowels that build an atmosphere of tension and danger.
The syntax is made for headlong rush and temporary reprieve, the punctuation allowing for pause whilst the enjambment encourages flow and increased energy.
The question is: how to cope in such a wind, how to come to terms with such power, enough to completely wipe out the scene, according to the speaker, who is caught up in the wind's dreadful strength.
So there is an existential aspect to this poem, which manifests near the end when the speaker comes inside, sits by the fire and presumably tries to communicate with whoever is next to him, in a separate chair.
Is this a friend, a lover, a relative? The reader is left in the dark. There's no telling if they'll survive.
As the wind powers on, the two sense that a great disturbance is about to take place and their domestic life is to be shaken to the core?
The final stanza is like something pout of a horror movie. There they are sitting by the roaring fire, unable to talk, incapable; and the urgent wind continues to sweep and batter the landscape. Upheaval is imminent.