A Literary Essay Example: Night Wind by Christopher Dewdney

Night wind is a poem by Christopher Dewdney who tries to demonstrate to the reader a scene of the influence that the wind has on speaker on during a particular breezy night. The authors major focus is the strength of the wind which tends to overpower and absorb the speaker. Nonetheless, reading the poem, the way it is constructed fails to appeal the reader, and hence do not attract any interest from the reader. Dewdney uses various efficient literary devices throughout the poem which fails to perforate a superficial level.

Through the poem, the author illustrates how vast and strong the wind is, portraying the wind as an overpowering force that has taken control of him. The author explores the growth and movement of the wind in every stanza. Reading the first stanza, Dewdney stresses the amount of the wind stating that it has crossed all the worlds and all lives. In this stanza, the author has used personification through depicting the wind as a force which is strong enough to cross all the worlds and lives. Through personification, the author further describes the wind as an empire in exodus which shows how strong the wind is. The poet further stresseds this through the use of alliteration which makes the phrase empire in exodus to dominate the entire poem. Also, in the first stanza, the author uses phrases such as the dark shape of the tree but not the trees. This shows the full strength of the wind on how it has changed what was once a tree to now a dark shadow of the tree after being blown off by the moving wind. The speaker also reputes the wind in terms spirituality. In the first stanza, the poet shows the manner in which the wind is important in his spiritual world. Tonight the wind blows through all the worlds I have known, and through all the lives I have led.

In the second stanza, the wind continues to become stronger as it has already grown. In the second stanza, the poet uses repetition of The night wind to add a sense of obedience and position how the speaker feels towards the wind. The speaker admits how the wind has taken control over him and he ends up using a metaphor to show how strong the wind is; The night wind is an empire exodus. To further show how strength and movement of the wind is, the speaker uses personification in the phrase, Oaks that wrestle the dusty twilight. Through personification of an oak tree, the author stresses the battle between the oak tree and the wind. The author tries to show that even a strong oak which is regarded as a strong tree cannot withstand the strength and the movement of the wind. In this stanza, the poet shows the freedom and supremacy of the wind through diction and tone and uses contrast against the rigid elements of nature.

In the third stanza, the poet-father shows how stronger the wind continues to become by claiming that the wind takes him and gathers him. The poet uses the third stanza to give the wind authority and power by showing the wind a darker hasher side. In this stanza, the author uses words such as mysterious while describing the wind. The mysterious and the dark nature of the wind shows how authoritative and strong the wind is. The poet further expresses a desire to be united with the wind in the third stanza physically. In this stanza, the speaker joins that gathers him into a storm of longing; gathers me into a storm of longing. The moment the poet is becoming in contact with the wind, he becomes seduced, and he is lost in his fantasy world. The speaker now becomes part of the wind which takes the poet up high above the ordinary planet in the fourth stanza. The poet uses fantasy to explain the strength of the wind; I am the bloodred of the atmosphere. With this statement, the speaker temporarily becomes part of the wind.

The poet continues to develop the wing in the fifth stanza explaining on how the wind has traveled through forests, highways, oceans and rivers. This portrays the capability of the wind to influence the physical world. The poet has further used enjambment in this stanza whereby lines tend to run to one another. This has helped in adding speed and pace to the poem that reflects the strength of the wind. However, the moment the speaker returns to the ordinary world after the experience in the fantasy world, there is a different change in tone as the speaker originally induces a mood of fantasy. It is as if the speaker had known that he was living in an imaginary world and hence decided to come back to the real world. In this poem, Dewdney has shown the strength and movement of the wind and later realizes that regardless of the power it possess, it lastly amount to nothing.