Hello Friends,
This blog is my response to the assignment assigned to us by our Prof. Dr. DilipSir in MA Sem2 - so read, understand and enjoy. Happy Learning!
Blowin' in the Wind
Song by Bob Dylan
Introduction
“Blowin’ in the Wind” is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962. It is a protest song that raises rhetorical questions about peace, war and freedom. Bob Dylan believes that the answers are there, however, no one dares to find them.
It deals with the ill effects of the Civil Rights Movement during the Vietnam War. Dylan was the views that the government focuses on war and ignores the violation of African Americans
Stanza 1
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 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.
Stanza 2
In the second couplet, there is a direct reference to the discrimination against the African Americans who were treated as second-class citizens in spite of living in ‘free’ country. The poet wonders when these people will be able to live freely and might not just ‘exist’ on the earth.
In the third couplet, the poet wonders how many times the good men will ignore the unjust and discriminatory things that they see around them.
He is waiting for the day when the people will raise their voice against discrimination instead of pretending that there is no inequality. In the last couplet, he repeats that the answer lies before us and waits for someone to grab it.
Stanza 3
In the first couplet, ‘sky‘ represents ‘freedom’. According to him, the sky i.e. freedom is hidden before the wars. So he wonders how many times one will have to face the wars in order to gain freedom and liberty. Here the poet refers to the long quest of the people for freedom.
In the second couplet, he wonders how long the government will remain deaf to the sorrows of the commoners. When it will hear the peoples’ plea against war and in favour of peace.
In the third couplet, he wonders when the government will realise that too many people have died because of war and it should be stopped now. It is a plea of the poet for peace. In the ending couplet, he says that the answers lie before us and we should grab it.
This song can be seen as a warning about the dangers of living pointlessly, going along with the crowd, and not treating others appropriately. The protagonist seems to be a frivolous society girl who, having fallen from her social pedestal, is given advice by the narrator about how to pick herself up. From what he says his ultimate desire, one would think, is that her recovery should lead to a more worthwhile existence.
There is no indication that the characters are real life people. On the contrary the writer seems to indicate that it’s the situation alone he’s concerned with. What happens is to be seen as a fairytale – they’re things which didn’t really happen, even in the distant past. The opening makes this clear since ‘Once upon a time’ is a traditional start to fairy stories. And the idea is reinforced by the reference in the fourth verse to a ‘Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people’ – fairytale characters in a fairytale setting. What we might expect from a fairy story is a moral, and this is what we seem to get. What we have is a cautionary tale – a warning of the sort of thing which might well happen even if it hasn’t happened to any particular real person yet.
In the song we are made to see the pitfalls of certain types of behaviour – in particular the protagonist’s trivial, insensitive behaviour for which she is continually castigated by the narrator. Before her fall we’re informed she was minimally generous to others, suggesting at least that there is some hope for her; but she’s also made to seem snobbish and patronising. This happens when we’re told she ‘threw the bums a dime’. Although these are the narrator’s words, in using ‘bum’ it would seem he’s mimicking, and so informing us about, the sort of derogatory language she would have used. It’s a term which suggests the user has little respect for the recipient of their supposed generosity. In addition, that she ‘threw’ the money also suggests a lack of genuine concern for those she’s meant to be helping. And the fact that it was only a dime she threw is enough to make her action seem positively insulting.
On other occasions, we find out, she’s not so much insulting as insensitive to the feelings of others. That she ‘never turned around to see the frowns on the jugglers and the clowns’ suggests she can’t be bothered to find out about people, but instead takes them at face value. With the circus imagery – jugglers and clowns – the narrator gets across the superficiality of her understanding of others. To her, the narrator implies, the people she interacts with are like circus performers in the eyes of children – two-dimensional humorous characters who have no existence outside the ring. It’s apparent that she is blind to the emotional complexities of others. She sees people as existing for her benefit, and takes no interest in their lives beyond the trivial things – disparagingly referred to by the narrator as ‘tricks’ – they are required to do for her. Nevertheless the implication seems to be that had she noticed their frowns, she might have been more generous. The narrator need not be indulging in outright condemnation. Her crime is perhaps thoughtlessness rather than viciousness.
In addition to the circus reference, fairground imagery is also used to get across the superficiality and pleasure centredness of this person’s life. She is said to have ridden a ‘chrome horse’ – the chrome being a thin covering of a metal with little to recommend it beyond its shininess. Presumably this is a sardonic reference to her glitzy lifestyle. This superficiality is reinforced in the admonition ‘You shouldn’t let other people get your kicks for you’; for her, life is merely a matter of getting ‘kicks’. And even then she requires other people to put themselves out so that she can get them.
The propensity which causes her not to notice the ‘frowns on the jugglers and the clowns’ is also the cause of her undoing. She naively fails to look beneath the surface and as a result misjudges her ‘diplomat’. Perhaps this is someone she sees as highly sophisticated – that might explain the shoulder-borne Siamese cat! But the cat in that position is perhaps vaguely reminiscent of a parrot, thus giving the diplomat a piratical air which she should have taken as a warning. Later, once the diplomat has betrayed her trust in him, it’s implied that she is in need of ‘alibis’; the diplomat then can be seen as someone who protected her by finding ways of excusing her behaviour, or denying it ever occurred. Unlike her, he turns out to be genuinely callous, however, with the result that he takes advantage of her naivety and steals all she has.
Although the narrator’s words are addressed to a particular person, the actual beneficiaries of the warning could be anyone whose outlook is similar – naive pleasure seekers without the imagination to appreciate what life can be like for the less fortunate. The lesson would seem to be that if you don’t treat other people with respect, if you don’t afford them the dignity which is their right, and if you fritter away your life, you might end up destroying that life. That the warning is intended not just for the woman is apparent from the lines:
Here other people are shown with the same outlook the protagonist had. The princess is presumably the protagonist’s replacement, the society goddess who has succeeded her. And ‘all the pretty people’ are those who don’t bother to assert their individuality, but just dress and behave like the rest. The description makes it clear both that this princess’s behaviour and that of the crowd-following ‘pretty people’ is destined to end in disaster, just as the protagonist’s has done. Just as the latter got ‘juiced’ at school, so these people spend their time getting ‘juiced’ – drinking. They are on the same path as her. Also by telling us they think they’ve ‘got it made’ the narrator seems to imply they’re probably jumping the gun – they haven’t got it made at all. Reversals, it’s being suggested, are just as likely to occur in their lives. And so for all of us.
The similarity between these people and the protagonist is again made clear in the reference to the exchange of gifts. Just as these people are exchanging gifts, so the protagonist had herself previously exchanged gifts. They seem to be on the same path as her. It is one of these supposedly ‘precious’ gifts, a diamond ring, which she is now being advised to pawn. This leaves us in little doubt that the protagonist’s present misfortune is these people’s future misfortune. If they don’t heed the song’s warning, they too will end up in poverty like her.
Despite all this, the song should not be seen as entirely pessimistic. There is a way up, as well as a way down. Whereas previously, true to character, the protagonist had been contemptuous of ‘Napoleon in rags and the language that he used’, her position now may be inferior to this person’s. (While the ‘in rags’ is a reference to his poverty, it may be a poverty he has by now managed to discard. This seems likely since he is recommended by the narrator as someone able to assist the protagonist. If so, and if the nickname Napoleon reflects a new status – suggesting grandeur and perhaps the conquest of his earlier misfortunes – he and the woman have exchanged positions.) There is hope for her now, according to the narrator, if she’ll swallow her pride and let this Napoleon help her back on her feet. It’s only if her lack of consideration for others extends to refusing to co-operate, that she’s damned. That he could help her to a worthwhile recovery is made clear from the insight we get into his character. Even though she had previously treated him with contempt – ‘You used to be so amused…’ – he is not put off. Neither is he put off by her fall from grace. He doesn’t treat her with the disdain she treated him. He is the sort of person to set her off on a better path.
It’s worth noting that the ‘pretty people’ and ‘Napoleon’ can be seen as different camps each representing a different sort of unity. The pretty people together with the protagonist are all unified in that they are doing the same as each other – dressing prettily, drinking and being deluded that they’ve ‘got it made’. But this is mindless unity; following the crowd. There’s no point to it because it just leads downhill. By contrast Napoleon and the protagonist together can be seen as representing a beneficial unity based on co-operation. It’s by their working together that the protagonist’s lot (and Napoleon’s too, depending on whether or not he’s still in rags) can be improved. This contrast in unities is reinforced by the contrasting descriptions applied to the camps – prettiness as opposed to raggedness.
It may be worth pointing out in this context the significance of the ‘mystery tramp’. Although he might have seemed a potential a source of help, given his experience of living on the streets, the protagonist had spurned co-operation with him. But subsequently, we learn she relented and became anxious to ‘make a deal’. This suggests the beginnings of an improvement in her outlook, her already seeing that there’s nothing to be achieved by going it alone, or going along with the crowd. As it happens, she attempted co-operation with the wrong person. Previously a ‘mystery’ to her, she’s now learnt he’d have been incapable all along of helping her – an incapacity represented by his ‘not selling any alibis’ and his vacant stare. Nevertheless she has at least now accepted the principle of co-operation, and this augurs well for how she might respond to the overtures of Napoleon.
That there is hope for the protagonist is indicated in other ways too. The chorus continually reminds us that she’s ‘like a rolling stone’. On one level this implies that her life is going ever faster downhill, but on another it reminds us of the proverb ‘a rolling stone gathers no moss’. This tells us there are benefits to being on the move, perhaps even through the lower echelons of society. If one keeps moving, one doesn’t get stultified, or destroyed by mind-numbing routines. In addition, we’re told, she’s ‘invisible now’ and has ‘no secrets to conceal’. The invisibility would seem to imply that her previous fame is no longer a restraint on her progress. And the lack of secrets implies perhaps that her previous life involved pretences – ‘secrets’, but we’re not told what – which she can now do without. Without such encumbrances she can make headway. Having thrown off the shallowness of her previous lifestyle she is in a position to succeed.
The narrator’s words are harsh. His somewhat vitriolic condemnation of the protagonist’s attitude might make the listener want to criticise him and even, perhaps, side with the protagonist against him. Such a response would, I think, miss the point. While for the fictional narrator these are real events happening to real people, for the listener, this is just a fairy story. But a fairy story can have a moral, and it’s the highly complex moral of this one which asks for our attention.
Essentially the song is about attitudes towards corruption and privilege. In that the narrator seems to speak dismissively of the main characters in describing them as ‘the joker’ and ‘the thief’ respectively, he may be ironically representing society’s attitudes to those who fail to accept its norms. Nevertheless the joker’s criticisms seem serious.
Like Lear’s fool, he is a wise joker, understanding the true state of the world. He sees that true values are going unappreciated – and in particular that certain sections of society (‘businessmen’) are benefiting at the expense of others (‘ploughmen’). Like the joker, the thief is also presented positively. He calms the joker down and speaks ‘kindly’ to him. His use of the phrase ‘You and I’, putting the joker on a level with himself, seems deliberately unpatronising. It also, by way of contrast, emphasises the very unegalitarian attitudes of those about whom the joker is complaining. He may be dismissed as a thief by those who determine society’s attitudes, but his values are in fact sound. It could, for all we know, be the selfish attitude of the better off, rather than his own inclination, which has forced him to become a thief (see below).
Previously it seems both he and the joker had dismissed what life had in store for them as a joke, but no longer. Now, he says, they are both ‘through that’, meaning presumably that they see there’s no point in complaining – or getting ‘excited’- about things being wrong. The expression he uses is ‘we’ve been through that’ which perhaps captures the idea of having suffered (i.e. been through a lot) as well as having seen through the idea that complaining is likely to be purposeful. Seeing life as a joke will achieve nothing, but there’s no need for them to continue being negative. The thief characterises their previous attitude as false, suggesting that the only proper approach is to recognise true values. ‘The hour is getting late’ shows the thief’s awareness of life’s brevity and the need to act appropriately before the opportunity is lost.
The final four lines tell us what is wrong with life – why it might be dismissed as a joke. The images are of luxurious living and unnecessary poverty – princes, women who came and went (but apparently didn’t do anything worth mentioning), contrasting with servants whose wages aren’t enough to buy shoes. Where the thief represents egalitarian attitudes in his treatment of the joker, by contrast the princes and the women represent privilege and repression. The phrase ‘while all the women came and went’ is reminiscent of T.S.Eliot’s ‘In the room the women come and go/Talking of Michelangelo’. Dylan’s women are presumably therefore equally well-to-do, and equally pretentious. They can be taken to represent the sorts of imperfection and corruption which lead the downtrodden to dismiss life as a joke. Interestingly, instead of ‘the women come and go’, Dylan has ‘the women came and went’, the past tense emphasising that time has moved on – ‘the hour is getting late’.
The princes can be taken to represent those who are in a position to improve the lot of others, but don’t. It’s significant that their watchfulness is described as being ‘all along the watchtower’. The phrase echoes the earlier ‘None of them along the line know what any of it is worth’. It would seem, therefore, that ‘them along the line’ refers at least in part to the princes. If the line is the hierarchical ordering of society, they are among those in that order who have no idea of true worth, and who accordingly fail to see how the world’s resources should be distributed. This is crucial since they, as princes, and therefore at the top of the order, are in the best position to put things right. That they ‘kept the view’ suggests that rather than do this their whole aim was to keep things the same. Nevertheless, in spite of their precautions to preserve the lifestyles of both the privileged and the exploited, the outlook is ominous. The wildcat growling, and the howling wind, represent Nature’s disapproval. And the two riders approaching suggests that the thief is right that ‘the hour is getting late’, that the time for a change of outlook is now.
The point about corruption, and its resolution being about to occur, is reinforced by the song’s religious allusions. The thief is reminiscent of the ‘good thief’ on Calvary. There are faint echoes of Christ’s ‘I am the way, the truth and the life…’ (John 14:6) in both the joker’s and the thief’s language. The joker is looking for a ‘way’ out, and the thief recommends truth – ‘So let us not talk falsely now’. If the wine is taken to be Christ’s blood, as at the Last Supper, then the complaint is that many have failed to recognise Christian values. And the wildcat which growls might remind us of Eliot’s ‘Christ the tiger’ – Christ preparing to mete vengeance on those who’ve ignored Christian precepts.
In addition, the joker’s language, when he refers to ‘my wine’ and ‘my earth’, associates him with the Old Testament prophets who would often refer to God in the first person. This is appropriate since the joker, like the prophets, is drawing attention to social norms which would be abhorrent to a good God. The use of expressions such as ‘watchtower’, ‘princes’ and ‘two riders’, all from the account in Isaiah of the fall of Babylon (Isaiah 21:5-9), also helps reinforce the idea that there’s nothing ultimately to be gained from corruption and privilege.