'Wind' by Ted Hughes- Analysis

Wind

This house has been far out at sea all night,

The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,

Winds stampeding the fields under the window

Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Till day rose; then under an orange sky

The hills had new places, and wind wielded

Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,

Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.

At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as

The coal-house door. Once I looked up -

Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes

The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,

The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,

At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;

The wind flung a magpie away and a black-

Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house

Rang like some fine green goblet in the note

That any second would shatter it. Now deep

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

Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,

Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,

And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,

Seeing the window tremble to come in,

Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons

Ted Hughes

Biography:

Often referred to as one of the greatest 20th century poets, Ted Hughes was born in Yorkshire in 1930. He began to write his first poems aged 15, before winning a scholarship to study English at Cambridge, although he switched to Archaeology and Anthropology in his third year there. His first published poem appeared in 1954, the year of his graduation, and his first book of poems, 'Hawk in the Rain', was published in 1957. The previous year he had met the American poet, Sylvia Plath, and they were married in four months. Over the next 41 years he would write over 90 books, winning numerous prizes and fellowships, and was appointed England's poet laureate in 1984, with his love of nature a key influence in his work. However, his personal life was less successful. His marriage to Sylvia Plath was a turbulent one, and they separated after seven years. She committed suicide in 1963, gassing herself in her kitchen a year after their separation, and many held Hughes responsible as a result of his affair with Assia Wevill. Six years later, Wevill killed herself and their four-year old daughter, Shura. His reputation was marred by these tragedies, and it was with great surprise that the literary world received 'Birthday Letters' in 1998, the year of his death from cancer. This volume was dedicated to Sylvia Plath, and paints a tender portrait of every aspect of his relationship with her. The intensity and beauty of his language is breathtaking, and every poem I have read contains fresh, striking imagery that perfectly encapsulates its subject.

Analysis:

‘Wind’ is one of Ted Hughes’ most formidable poems, showing an entirely different aspect to this element. Unlike many other poets such as John Clare (‘A Morning Breeze’), Hughes is not concerned with describing the beauty and serenity of a balmy breeze; his aim is solely to communicate the relentless, godly strength and power of the wind that he knows from stormy days on the moors of the Pennines, using pathetic fallacy as the main device to describe both the wind and its victims.

            
            In the first of six four-line stanzas, Hughes describes the tempestuous night that has passed. The opening line is both simple but striking, comparing a solid house to a flimsy boat that has been tossed and smashed in a sea gale, with the words ‘far out’ and ‘all night’ suggesting the house is marooned in isolation. Like terrified, panicked animals, the woods have been ‘crashing through darkness’ while the hills are ‘booming’ with the thunderous sound of the wind. Personification is used to convey its almighty, dangerous power: it was ‘stampeding the fields’ while the land was futilely ‘floundering’ in the ‘blinding wet’.  The oceanic metaphor continues, conjuring up an image of a night mastered by the storm that rages through the dark. However, the beginning of the second verse is misleading: ‘till day rose’ indicates that finally the storm is over, whereas, in fact, the ensuing chaos is almost more intense, undiluted by the rain that saturates the first four lines.

            
            No longer black, the sky has now adopted the unnatural, ominous colour of orange, and as a consequence of the previous night, the ‘hills had new places’: the wind is so powerful that it has the ability to alter the very landscape it rules. It is also armed and ready to do battle with the earth again with renewed vigour, demonstrated by the martial image ‘wind wielded blade-light.’ Imagining the wind as an Anglo-Saxon warrior, Hughes shows that it has harnessed the power of light to its weaponry, and conveys a crazed frenzy. It is as though the wind even has a face, with the ‘black and emerald’ the colours of its pupil and iris. However, they are ‘luminous’, and the light from its wild face is ‘flexing like the lens of a mad eye’: a surreal concept conveying brilliantly the strange light and unpredictability in the aftermath of a storm. 

           
            The third stanza opens with the line, ‘at noon, I scaled along the house side’, as Hughes continues with the metaphor of the house as a boat.  Inching along the wall for protection, he reaches ‘as far as the coal house door’; by starting a new line after ‘as far as’, Hughes creates an exaggerated climax before recording the small distance that he actually managed to navigate. This first-person perspective is most effective in conveying the poet’s vulnerability. Hunched and stooped, he dares to look up just once, and immediately the balls of his eyes feel ‘dented’ by the ‘brunt wind’. This shocking sensory image of an eyeball being violently assaulted by a hard object conveys the brute force of the wind. The internal rhyme of ‘dented’ and ‘tent’ adds to the harsh, metallic feel of the verse, continuing with ‘the tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope’. Not only is the physical shape of the curved landscape depicted, this metaphorical image of movement shows the inescapable wind as being almost within the earth, its formidable power nearly snapping the ropes that anchor the hills to the ground.

            
            In the literal and figurative ‘the fields quivering’, Hughes shows not only the rippling appearance of the land, but personifies it as well: previously, the fields were stampeded by the wind, now they tremble in submission and distress. The sky too is mastered by the wind, with an arresting description of the shape of the horizon as a ‘grimace’, wincing in fear and pain. This is followed by the onomatopoeic, ‘bang and vanish with a flap’: such is the nature of these words that they demand to be read quickly and suddenly, demonstrating the unpredictable state of the land at the merciless hands of the wind, and the upheaval and tension it causes. With careless ease, the wind ‘flung a magpie away’: it is personified as it hurls a bird as thoughtlessly as a human might a discarded object.  ‘Flung’ also indicates a temper.  In contrast to the rapid pace of this stanza, the reader is then forced to slow down with the monosyllabic ‘black-back gull bent like an iron bar slowly’, which links closely with the image being described, as the assonantal rhythm mirrors the meaning. Material is of no consequence to the wind, as it easily alters the shape of both metal and earth, and nature is helpless in the face of the wind’s demented onslaught.

            
            ‘The house’ is deliberately placed in the stanza above the rest of its sentence to create impact for the opening of the next verse, as it matches the harsh assonance of sounds of ‘iron’ and ‘slowly’. It also sits alone, perilously exposed. The wind has now reached a frequency so powerful that it could shatter Hughes’ home like ‘a fine green goblet’, showing that compared to the wind, mere bricks and mortar are extremely delicate and fragile. The wind has again reached inside its subjects: before, it threatened to burst from within the hills; now, it howls inside the house at a frequency that could shatter glass. There is a sense of urgency and tension in the words  ‘any second would shatter it’, with Hughes and his house now in immediate danger.

            
            Despite the reassurance of being ‘deep in chairs’ by a ‘great fire’, this is no match for the wind, and Hughes and his family are uneasy and unsettled by its presence. It has invaded their minds, for they ‘cannot entertain book, though, or each other.’ Instead, they sit brooding, watching the fire while they ‘feel the roots of the house move’. There is no security to be found, and again, the house is in danger of being hurled away, and shifts to rearrange its position in the earth. The windows not only tremble with the force of the wind that hammers them, but are personified as afraid, desperate to seek shelter within the walls of the house. In the concluding lines, they hear the ‘stones cry out under the horizons’: even the prehistoric stones are weeping in desperation at the cruel havoc caused by the wind.

            
            Hughes uses enjambement to create fluidity much like the flow of the wind, although there is no regular rhyme pattern, showing that its inexhaustible energy cannot be limited. Hughes portrays how its sheer elemental force masters the land, sky, light, fire and stones in an assault of sense images which reflect its immeasurable rage. However, the tone is not one of criticism, but of awe at its power. He also highlights the insignificance of man compared to such strength, with the personification serving to blur the line between nature and humanity, as all are helpless in the face of the wind.