19 pages • 38 minutes read
Bob DylanBlowin' in the Wind
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1962A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Historical Context
Although the poem uses figurative or symbolic language, the historical context links the poem to the American civil rights movement. Dylan released “Blowin’ in the Wind” in 1963 when Black people and their allies vehemently protested the ongoing injustices and dehumanization occurring in the United States. Many white people did not see Black people as equals, and Black people lacked the basic freedom and legal protections that most white people received. Segregation persisted and was still codified into law in many parts of the United States, and people could kill and harass Black people with relative impunity. In 1955, a pair of white men in Mississippi brutally murdered a Black teen boy, Emmett Till, for allegedly whistling at a white woman. An all-white jury declared the two men charged with the crime not guilty. A year later, the men confessed to the crime and sold their story since they could not face prosecution for the same crime twice.
Dylan wrote a specific song about Emmett, “The Death of Emmett Till” (1962), and while “Blowin’ in the Wind” does not specifically mention Till or any other horrible incident, the questions about society’s inequality and brutality represent the civil rights movement and the battle for fairness. Arguably, they are the wind that other people must follow. For the first part of his career, Dylan aligned himself with the moment, performing another protest song, “Only a Pawn in Their Game” (1964), for the March on Washington—a 1963 protest for Black justice and equality.
In the early 1960s, wars were gaining momentum across the world. There was the Cold War with the Soviet Union, and the fear that nuclear weapons might wipe out large portions of humanity. There was also America’s escalating war in Vietnam, where the nation was supposedly combating the tyranny of communism. These wars did not feature cannonballs, but they illustrate a key point in “Blowin’ in the Wind”: throughout history, people try to kill and destroy one another.
Literary and Cultural Context
As a poem, “Blowin’ in the Wind” belongs to a wide canon of poems tackling racial injustice. Like Dylan, the Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes used rhyme and simple diction to address the inequality and dehumanization facing Black people in America. In “Children’s Rhymes” (1967) Hughes declares, “We know everybody / ain’t free” (Lines 9-10). In “Blowin’ in the Wind,” Dylan’s speaker asks, “[H]ow many years can some people exist / Before they’re allowed to be free?” (Lines 11-12). In “Tired” (1931), Hughes’s speaker, like Dylan’s speaker, expresses exasperation with the cruel status quo and asks readers to confront and change the foul aspects of the world.
As a song, “Blowin’ in the Wind” connects to a large selection of protest music. Dylan’s speaker asks people to seek answers in the wind, and John Lennon’s speaker in his later song, “Imagine” (1971), asks the listener to think of a world without war and oppression. Woody Guthrie, a folk singer and a key influence on Dylan, used music to draw people’s attention to the wrongs of the world. A slew of 21st-century musicians—Run the Jewels and Anohni among them—use music to confront life-or-death issues. In “Obama” (2016), Anohni sees the former president, Barack Obama, as a symbol of the destructive forces that Dylan’s speaker notes in “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
The flexible relationship between poets and musical artists in Western culture goes beyond Dylan. Allen Ginsberg wrote poetry and recorded music, and the poet Nikki Giovanni sets some of her poems to music. Many musical artists think of themselves as poets. The rapper Tupac wrote poems, and in “Renegade” (2002), the rapper Eminem notices, “[I]’m a poet to some / A regular modern-day Shakespeare.” In Equipment for Living: On Poetry and Pop Music (2017), the poet and critic Michael Robbins compares the lyrics of the pop star Taylor Swift to those of the 19th-century French poet Arthur Rimbaud—a Dylan influence. Dylan played with the fluidity between songwriter and poet. In “I Shall Be Free No. 10” (1964), Dylan quips, “I’m a poet, and I know it / Hope I don’t blow it.”
