Wind (Ted Hughes poem) Literary Elements

an active, first person speaker

six stanzas of four lines each, no set rhyme scheme

"This house has been far out at sea all night"

Hughes metaphorically compares the house to a ship at sea during a storm.

"...and wind wielded/ Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,/ Flexing like the lens of a mad eye."

The wind's motion is compared to a rapidly dilating pupil.

"...the skyline a grimace,"

Hughes compares the skyline to an unpleasant expression.

"...a black-/ Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly."

The simile of an iron bar bending from some great force describes the wind's deadly impact on a gull.

"The house/ Rang like some fine green goblet in the note/ That any second would shatter it."

Hughes uses the simile of someone ringing the edge of a goblet to describe the sound of the wind against the house.

"...we grip our hearts."

Hughes uses the conceptual metaphor of "gripping" one's heart to describe the intense, dreadful emotion the characters experience at the end of the poem.

"..wind wielded/ Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,/ Flexing like the lens of a mad eye,"

Repetition of /w/, /b/, /l/, and /e/ sounds.

"Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes"

Repetition of /t/ sounds.

"...a black-/ Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly."

Repetition of /b/ sounds.

postmodern poetry

an isolated house in a rural landscape

grave, tempestuous

The speaker is the protagonist, and the wind, in addition to the forces it symbolizes, is the antagonist

The poem's major conflict is twofold. First, the superficial conflict between the speaker and the catastrophic winds raging outside his home. Then, the deeper conflict between the speaker and his company, symbolized by the winds.

The climax of the poem occurs at the beginning of stanza 5, when "The house/ Rang like some fine green goblet in the note/ That any second would shatter it." This represents the height of the poem's conflict, when the wind's full force impacts the speaker's home. Following this moment, the tension releases through the speaker and the second figure's passivity.

"Seeing the window tremble to come in,/ Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons."

Hughes personifies the window and the stones with the human actions of trembling and crying.

Hughes magnifies the wind's consequences through strong, descriptive language. For example, we know that the wind probably didn't "dent" the speaker's eyes when he ventures outside, but this word choice allows us to imagine the wind's impact.

Evocative, sonic language occurs throughout wind: "crashing," "stampeding," "drummed," "bang" "rang," "cry."