16 pages • 32 minutes read
AnonymousWestern Wind
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1500A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Inevitability of Change
The author of this sixteenth-century poem represents two types of change in the poem, one positive and one negative. When the speaker asks the West wind when it will “blow/ The small rain down” (Lines 1 - 2), it is unclear whether the speaker desires the wind to blow away the rain, or blow the rain towards the speaker. If the wind blows the rain away from the speaker, then it may provide them with clearer, brighter weather. On the other hand, if the wind blows the rain towards the speaker, it may bring forth growth and new life in the speaker’s immediate vicinity. Both scenarios come with their own positives and negatives: peace from the rain or drought, new life or flooding. A possible third option fir change could be that the wind won’t come for a while, and the climate will remain stagnant. Whatever the movements of the West wind, the speaker makes clear that change is inevitable, as well as unpredictable.
There’s No Place Like Home
Despite the unpredictability of Mother Nature and the West wind which may or may not choose to move the rain, one place is able to provide solace for the speaker. In the face of the unpredictable, the speaker longs for what is most familiar and comforting. They wish that their “love were in my arms” (Line 3). They want to be close with their beloved once more. Not only do they want to be with a particular person, but they want to be in a particular, familiar space. The speaker verbalizes their desire to be “in my bed again” (Line 4). Uncertainty sends the speaker towards what they know and what feels safe and welcoming. For the speaker, this safety is available in the presence of the person whom they love most and where they feel most secure: home.
The Power of Nature
Behind the idea of the unpredictability of West wind is the larger theme of the human inability to control nature. It is not the speaker who decides whether or not the West wind blows the rain in or out of their given territory. Rather, the speaker is left to wait, wonder, and ponder whether or not the West wind, a representative of nature, will make a move or not. In the end, the speaker is helpless. They can only sit patiently and wish for their beloved and their bed at home. Nature holds the ultimate power over whether the speaker gets rain or not. While humans may oftentimes be considered the “top of the food chain,” nature disagrees and exerts its uncompromising force.
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