WIND

Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was a great poet of twentieth century. He was living in an age of anxiety and frustration when German Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party had occupied the whole of Europe during 1939 and 1945 and the Europeans were enforced to live a life of slavery. Add to this, Ted married Sylvia Plath (an American poetess) in 1956 and left her for another woman in 1962. He was much frustrated by the suicidal act of Plath by the following year. Therefore, his poetry often speaks of the prevalent furore, turmoil, perturbation, chaos, weariness, agitation and unrest.

His poem ‘Wind’ is a record of post-world war mental tensions, intellectual abnormality, sense of insecurity, feelings of horror and lack of freedom. The central theme of the poem deals with the lost mental equilibrium of the modern man. This poem is symbolic and Ted has conveyed his inner thoughts, sentiments and notions in the guise of rare symbols. He makes use of different types of imagery in order to produce visual and auditory effects in the mind of his readers. His use of onomatopoeia in almost each stanza exposes how horrible sounds would have banged in the minds of the survivors of the World War II.

In this poem, Ted Hughes appears as the representative of the White during the German invasion. The first stanza of the poem is a commentary on the psychological conditions of the Europeans when Adolf Hitler started genocide attacks in Europe. This is how his poem opens loaded with symbolic meanings;

“This house has been far out at sea all night.”

The ‘House’ symbolizes human brain. Particularly, a house that stands out at sea is always in jeopardy of some perilous storm which may rage any moment in the ocean. Meaning thereby that the World War II had left daunting impacts on the minds of the Europeans. In fact, death was hovering over their heads and danger was dancing in the streets. Their minds had never relaxed from anxiety, agony and apprehensions. They had feelings as if;

“The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window.”

This continued throughout the ‘Night’ e.g., the dark period which ended with the death of Hitler in Berlin.

The second stanza opens with a shining phrase ‘Till day rose’ which means that an era of new hope started which brought a feeling of;

“…………..…… then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light …….…………………………... .”

But fear had never gone. It had become a part and parcel of the unconscious of every individual in Europe. The panorama of bygone days was so dreadful that jubilation was no more than;

“… luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.”

After sufficient time had passed (At noon), the poet looks back at his past (house-side) and immediately reaches a very terrific, horrific and disastrous recollection (the coal-house). A ray of horror (the brunt wind) sweeps over his body and soul;

“…………….………….. that dented the balls of my eyes,
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope.”

In the next stanza, the poet harps on the same string and says that the recollection of this horrible, dreadful and direful incident (the wind) is so powerful that it has overwhelmed and overpowered their blooming sentiments of happiness (magpie). Similarly, this wind like an iron bar obstructs the path of black-back gull (a bird which represents freedom) meaning thereby that some events occur in man’s life which snatch the feelings of freedom and joy from him. Even, engrossed in such awful and horrific thoughts;

       “In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip,

    Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought.”

In the last stanza, the poet expounds that they (the whites) keep watching the burning fire and the bouts of terror, terror and disaster keep sweeping over their skulls but they keep sitting with fears in their hearts;

“Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.”