Lamb to the Slaughter: Roald Dahl

This story begins with the most innocent of domestic scenes. Mary Maloney, a housewife in her sixth month of pregnancy, is waiting for her husband to return home. It is a Thursday night, and they usually eat out. When Patrick Maloney does come home, he is strangely moody and takes a stronger drink than usual. Mary tries to divert him with the usual domestic comforts but to no avail. Patrick asks her to sit down, announcing that he has an important matter to discuss with her. Though the reader is never told, it is clear that Patrick is going to divorce Mary. He ends his speech by saying that he will see that she is provided for and that he hopes that there will be no fuss because it might reflect badly on his position in the police department.

The announcement that she will lose the man around whom her world revolves puts Mary into a daze of unbelief. Instead of arguing with Patrick, she goes on as if nothing has happened, hoping that this will somehow cause her problem to go away. She prepares to make supper and goes down to the deep freezer. She chooses a frozen leg of lamb for the meal. Moving like a somnambulist, she walks into the living room. When Patrick tells her that he does not want dinner, Mary moves behind him and hits him over the head with the leg of lamb.

Patrick falls to the floor with a crash, and this brings Mary to her senses. Mary realizes that she has killed Patrick, and though she is willing to take the legal consequences, she fears for her unborn child, who might die if she is executed. Her mind is now working clearly, and she devises an elaborate deception for the police. She prepares the leg of lamb and puts it in the oven. She then goes to her room and gets ready to go out. As she does so, she rehearses the conversation that she will have with the grocer, trying to get the voice tones and facial expressions as close to normal as possible. This deception is put into operation. She goes to the grocery and uses the exact words that she has rehearsed, so that the whole scene at the grocery appears to be the everyday act of a wife picking up food for her husband’s dinner and chatting with the grocer. She then returns home, telling herself that she must remain natural and to expect nothing out of the ordinary when she enters the house. Thus, when Mary does arrive, she calls out to Patrick as if he were still alive. Her shock at actually finding Patrick’s body is almost completely unfeigned, as if she really did not know that she has already killed him.

Mary then calls the police and reports that Patrick Maloney has been killed. Two police officers, one of whom is Jack Noonan, arrive at the house. Both men are familiar to Mary, who knows most of Patrick’s friends on the police force. They begin the investigation into Patrick’s murder by recording Mrs. Maloney’s story about going out to get food for supper and coming back to find Patrick’s body. Noonan, completely taken in, comforts Mary, asking if she would rather go to her sister’s house or stay with his wife. Mary, however, stays throughout the investigation. When a doctor and other specialists arrive to examine the body, the police conclude that Patrick was killed by a blow to the head with a blunt instrument, probably made of steel.

The police begin searching the house for the murder weapon but with no success. Mary asks Noonan for a drink, then invites him to have one himself. Soon all the police are having a drink, and the investigation has become a consolation scene. Finding that the lamb is now cooked, Mary asks the police officers to eat it because she owes it to Patrick to extend the hospitality of his home to his friends. She finally persuades them to eat the meal as a favor to her. As they do so, they remark that the murder weapon would be very difficult to conceal. One man says to Noonan that the weapon is “probably right under our very noses,” which causes Mary to giggle.

The Lost Jewels: Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore allows himself the ease of using many Hindi words like Ghat in the stories. The usual setting of his stories is a river ghat and a rural village; not to mention the middle people for it is obvious. He has a nerve to glorify his female character and make the males characters suffer in most of his work. A story is a hundred times its worth when the writer touches upon the internal world of the characters rather than just sticking to the externals. Tagore has this wonderful blend of characteristics with which he spins his yarns to mesmerize the reader. Lost jewels is no deviation from this trend. Being born in an enslaved British India he was skeptical and apprehensive of the mercerization sweeping the lengths and breadths of the country. Lost jewels merely serves as a surrogate though which he shoots his arrows of sarcasm.

The inception of the story is typically Indian. The narrator comes and sits near the author (presumably). He was a sort of person who was bubbling with inquisitiveness right from the top to bottom! The sequence of questions and answers is again a typical Indian gossip.

"What sort?

A dealer in cacoons and Timber.

What name?

After a while of hesitation I have him a name but it wasn't my own.

Why have come here?

For a change of air.

Sir I must tell you that I've been enjoying the air of this place for nearly six years with a daily of average of 15 grains of quinine and I don't feel I've benefitted much……."

The narrator begins his story about the huge eerie house with tumbledown verandas.

"But he was modern. Bhushan Saha was not only spoke faultless English but actually entered the Sahib's office with his shoes on. In addition to that he also grew a beard. There was no possibility for him in bettering himself as far as the Sahib's were concerned."

"There was another drawback in his home. His wife was beautiful …."

"With his college education on one hand and his beautiful wife on the other what hope was there to preserve our good old tradition?"

Thus Bhushan Saha as he is introduced as a fine gentleman, is too sober in his ways, an idealistic person indeed. He loved his wife from the deepest core of his heart which alas was not reciprocated. Bhushan was excessively possessive of Mani and altogether too submissive. he was a man that scarcely belonged to the century in which he was born.  

"He should have been born five or six centuries hence when the world would be moved by the psychic forces. He was unfortunate to have a wife who belonged to the 19^th century."

Thus Bhushan was a misfit in the society and Mani his wife was totally obverse of what he was.

"Mani looked upon his husband as a mere machine for tuning out her Decca Muslins and bangles without being able to pride herself over a victory."

"Mani always worked and saved and was never sick nor sorry. She preserved everything with one exception of her husband's caresses."

"….Perhaps beauty is best preserve in a heart that is an ice-box."

Mani was exceptionally beautiful.

"She had not lost an atom of her youthful beauty."

Although being such a gifted woman she was an utter failure in her life. She had no children to look after save her jewelry which grew from year to year as though it were her very children! Feeding religious mendicants was not her way. She never gave any alms nor did she mix much with the neighbors. All that she cared for in her life was the jewelry that her husband foolishly have her thinking that the way to get is to give.

Ups and downs is the way of the business. Bushan being a businessman was in a need of a Lakh and a half. The core of this matter, he in the most hesitating manner broached to his wife Mani. True love is ever-ready to sacrifice even the most valuable possession to bring a grin on the face of his/her beloved. But Mani instead of helping her husband in his period of hardships flatly refused him even of the slightest aid.

"He was deeply hurt but was incapable of retuning the hurt back."

Bhushan even then was so stuffed with loft morals that he didn't jeer at her. There was not a trace of barbaric nature in him. He at a length hired the requisite sum from Calcutta.

But in the interim Mani had flown on the advice of his sloppy brother Modhu to her father's place. Bhushan upon returning from Calcutta was grief stricken not finding Mani around. The area in vicinity was ransacked but neither Modhu nor Mani were to be found. Thus day upon day he sulked and returned to a dream world which eventually severed his soul from his body.

Such was the tragic end of the story said that narrator which of course was a bluff as the man to which he was telling was himself none other Bhushan Saha.

Nonetheless Bhushan was a very delicate and sober man in contrast to the shrewd, possessive Mani. This story teaches us many lessons. Firstly avarice is the root cause of all evil. Also the story ran around and emphasized on the need of 'Balance in a relationship.' Furthermore possessiveness and obsession of all kinds leads us to hell. All of these nobble ideals finely interwoven in a succulent banquet is what Lost Jewels is! 

Arms and the Man: Bernard Shaw (Summary)

Summary

Raina is in her bedroom on the second floor of the Petkoff house in a small town in Bulgaria when her mother enters to tell her that Sergius has just led the Bulgarians to victory in battle with the Serbs. Raina rejoices; her idealistic expectations of war and soldiers are met. Louka enters to tell them that the army orders them to lock all the doors and windows while enemy stragglers are being pursued. Catherine and Louka leave. Shots are heard outside and a man stumbles into the room. He is a Serbian artillery officer, exhausted, nervous, and hungry. When soldiers appear at the door, demanding to search the room, Raina on impulse hides the man and tells them no one else is there.

Raina and the man talk. She expresses her contempt for his being a coward and for his stuffing his pockets with chocolate instead of ammunition. He tries to explain to her the realities of battle and identifies her portrait of Sergius as the man who led the charge that won the battle; the Bulgarians won only because the Serbians had the wrong-size ammunition. The man describes Sergius as a romantic fool who won by doing the professionally wrong thing. Raina objects strongly to this, but when the man decides to leave, Raina says she will save him and goes in search of her mother; they return to find him fast asleep on the bed.

Four months later, Nicola and Louka are arguing in the Petkoffs’ garden. Nicola wants Louka to be more polite to the Petkoffs because he intends to set up a shop and is counting on the Petkoffs as his principal customers. Major Petkoff returns from the war and is greeted by his wife, Catherine. Sergius is shown in. Bitter because the army refuses to promote him, he declares his intention to resign. Sergius and Petkoff speak of a tale they heard of a Swiss officer being rescued by two Bulgarian women. At this point, Raina leaves, and when Louka enters, Sergius attempts to flirt with her. Louka tells him that she knows a secret about Raina and a strange man. When they are alone, Raina and Catherine discuss the Swiss soldier. Raina leaves and Louka announces a Captain Bluntschli, who comes to return a coat Raina and Catherine loaned him. Catherine begs him not to reveal who helped him. Petkoff appears and asks Bluntschli to stay to help with some transportation matters. When Raina enters, she manages to cover up her surprise at seeing Bluntschli.

After lunch that day, Petkoff and Sergius are in the library, writing orders for troop movements. Petkoff wants his comfortable old coat and Catherine says it is in the closet (where she put it after getting it back from Bluntschli). Nicola returns with the coat and all leave except Raina and Bluntschli, who discuss lies, gratitude, and the differences between practicality and the false ideals of romanticism. Bluntschli sees through her pretense of noble ideals and Raina admits that he found her out. Raina tells Bluntschli that she put a photograph of herself in the pocket of the coat, but Bluntschli never found it. He receives mail that was collected for him, among which is the news that his father is dead and left him a number of big hotels.

In a discussion between Louka and Nicola, Nicola suggests that it would be best if Louka and Sergius marry and become his valued customers. Sergius enters and, after Nicola leaves, flirts again with Louka; he is still disillusioned about life and by his own inability to measure up to his ideals. Louka tells him that Raina is sure to marry Bluntschli, so when Bluntschli enters, Sergius challenges him to a duel. Bluntschli agrees and, being a practical man, chooses machine guns. Raina enters and wants to know why they are going to fight; she suspects what has been going on with Louka and has become disenchanted with Sergius, who concludes that life is a farce and that there is now no need for a duel. Raina says that Sergius should fight Nicola, since he is Louka’s fiancé, information that disillusions Sergius even more.

When Petkoff enters and wants his coat again, Raina helps her father put it on and takes the opportunity to slip the photograph out of the pocket. Her father already found the picture, however, and wants to know the meaning of the inscription, “Raina, to her Chocolate Cream Soldier: a Souvenir.” Thereupon, Bluntschli reveals that he is the chocolate cream soldier; Louka and Sergius become engaged; and Bluntschli laments that despite his practicality he always had a romantic streak—he returned the coat in person, hoping to see Raina again. When he discovers that Raina is really twenty-three, not seventeen, as he supposed, he proposes to her and is accepted. As Bluntschli leaves, Sergius supplies the final comment: “What a man! Is he a man!”

Act 1

It is November 1885, during the Serbo-Bulgarian War. Raina Petkoff, a young Bulgarian woman, is in her bedchamber when her mother, Catherine, enters and announces there has been a battle close by and that Raina’s fiancé, Major Sergius Saranoff, was the hero of a cavalry charge. The women rejoice that Sergius has proven to be as heroic as they expected, but they soon turn to securing the house because of fighting in the streets. Nonetheless, a Serbian officer gains entry through Raina’s shutters. Raina decides to hide him and she denies having seen anyone when she is questioned by a Russian officer who is hunting for a man seen climbing the water pipe to Raina’s balcony. Raina covers well, and the Russian leaves without noticing the pistol on Raina’s bed.

When Raina hands the gun to the Serbian after the Russian leaves, the Serbian admits that the gun is not loaded because he carries chocolates in his cartridge belt instead of ammunition. He explains that he is a Swiss mercenary fighting for the Serbs because it is his profession to be a soldier and the Serbian war was close by. He adds that old, experienced soldiers carry food while only the young soldiers carry weapons. Shocked by this attitude, Raina criticizes him for being a poor soldier. He counters by describing what makes a real fool, not knowing that his version of the day’s cavalry charge makes fun of her betrothed. She is incensed but agrees to let him stay once he impresses upon her the danger of going back out into the street. She tries to impress him with her family’s wealth and position, saying that they have the nobility to give refuge to an enemy. He pledges her safety and advises her to tell her mother about his presence, to keep matters proper. While she is gone, he falls into a deep sleep on her bed and he cannot be roused by a shocked Catherine. Raina takes pity on him and asks that they let him sleep.

Act 2

On March 6, 1886, Raina’s father, Major Paul Petkoff, comes home and announces the end of the war. Catherine is upset that the Serbians have agreed to a peace treaty, believing that her side should have a glorious victory. Major Saranoff arrives just after Petkoff makes comments indicating that Saranoff is not a talented military leader. Catherine praises Saranoff, but he announces that he is resigning from the army. Raina joins the conversation just before the discussion turns to a Swiss officer who bested the men in a horse trade and who had been, according to a friend’s story, rescued by two Bulgarian ladies after a battle. Catherine and Raina pretend to be shocked by such unpatriotic behavior.

Catherine and Major Petkoff leave the two young people to have some time to alone. Raina and Sergius exchange all the silly platitudes expected of lovers about how much...

Critical Context

Arms and the Man was an important play for Shaw because it was the first of his plays to be a public success; it was certainly an encouragement to Shaw to continue his chosen profession. It was also the first of Shaw’s plays to make money. The play is Shaw’s first fairly direct attack upon false idealism, an attack aimed not so much at his audience’s conscience as at its attitudes. This play produced more laughter than any of Shaw’s plays to that point, and perhaps more laughter than any other play of Shaw’s. It is a laughter different from that inspired by his Unpleasant Plays; in those plays, the laughter is often bitter and ironic. In Arms and the Man, the laughter is less bitter, more natural, and more agreeable to a general audience. Part of the reason for this is that Shaw was using so many of the traditional devices of comedy that the audiences felt quite at home.

In terms of Shaw’s career, the play is most important because it marked the shift from the propagandist Unpleasant Plays to his attacks, in the Pleasant Plays, on the romantic, idealistic follies of mankind. The social reformer of the earlier plays has shifted methods (though not goals), realizing that he must first change attitudes before he can appeal directly to consciences. The same method was used by Henrik Ibsen inEt dukkehjem (pr., pb. 1879; A Doll’s House, 1880) and other plays, and the view recommended by Shaw himself in The Quintessence of Ibsenism (1891). Whether propagandist or anti-idealist, Shaw did not want simply idle laughter. He maintained that it was easy to make people laugh—he wanted to make people think. The desire to make people think through comedy and laughter, however, presents an automatic problem, one not peculiar to Shaw: If the dramatist succeeds in making people laugh in order to make his points, he runs the danger of having the audience being seduced by the laughter and ignoring the ideas. Shaw continually reprimanded audiences and readers for enjoying his plays but failing to see or appreciate what lay behind the laughter.

The most damaging criticism of Arms and the Man, more common in the past but still heard today, is that Shaw was engaging in mere “topsy-turvyism” in the manner of William S. Gilbert, that he was simply turning things upside down to get a laugh from surprise and paradox in the manner of Oscar Wilde. Shaw consistently maintained that he was not, like Gilbert or Wilde, making fun of people who did not live up to ideals, but that he was making fun of the ideals as being impossible to live up to and contrary to the nature of man.

The Play

Arms and the Man begins in November, 1885. Raina is seen at the open balcony window on the second floor of the Petkoff house in a small Bulgarian town. Her mother enters with the news that Raina’s fiance, Sergius, has just led the Bulgarians to victory in battle against the Serbians. Raina rejoices; her idealistic expectations of war and soldiers have been met. The servant Louka enters to tell them that the army has ordered people to stay indoors and lock and bolt all doors and windows while stragglers are being pursued in the streets. Catherine and Louka leave. There are shots outside, and Raina blows out the candles and takes to her bed. The figure of a man appears in the window and stumbles into the room. He closes the shutters, threatens to shoot Raina if she makes noise, and tells her to light a candle; he is revealed as a Serbian artillery officer, battered and exhausted, nervous and hungry. Soldiers at the door demand to search the room; a man has been seen climbing to her balcony. On impulse, Raina hides the man behind the drapes; an officer enters, is assured by Raina that there is no one else present, and leaves apologizing.

Raina and the man talk, she despising him for being a cowardly and ignoble soldier, he trying to explain to her the realities of battle. When he complains of hunger, she gives him a box of chocolate creams. The man identifies a portrait of Sergius as the man who led the cavalry charge that won the battle—but only because the Serbians had the wrong ammunition for their guns; the man thinks him a romantic fool who won the battle by doing the professionally wrong thing. Raina understandably objects strongly. Further noises from the street move the man, who is not nearly as fierce as he at first seemed, to leave and take his chances, but Raina, at pains to demonstrate her aristocratic ideals and background, says that she will save him. She goes to get her mother; they return to find him asleep on the bed.

Act 2

 begins four months later in the garden of the Petkoff house; it is morning. Louka and Nicola are arguing; Nicola tells Louka that she must not be impertinent to the Petkoffs. If she is, they will discharge her—and he is depending upon the Petkoffs to be his customers when he sets up his shop; if the family turns against her, they will not patronize him. Major Petkoff returns from the war, and Catherine enters to greet him. Sergius, a romantically handsome, Byronic man, is shown in. He is bitter that, having won the battle the wrong way, the army now refuses to promote him; he intends to resign his commission in disgust. Raina enters and there is talk of a tale Sergius and Petkoff have heard of a Swiss officer being rescued by two Bulgarian women. Sergius and Raina are left alone and engage in romantic, high-minded, worshipful talk. Raina leaves to get her hat; Louka enters to clear the table, and Sergius attempts to cuddle and kiss her. Louka taunts Sergius about his lack of high-mindedness where she is concerned and says that she has a secret about his fiancee and a strange man. Louka leaves and Raina enters, but Petkoff calls Sergius into the house to help settle details of getting several regiments back to base. Raina and Catherine are left to discuss the caddishness of the Swiss soldier in revealing to strangers his escape at the hands of two women; Raina then exits. Louka announces a Captain Bluntschli, a Swiss officer. Catherine realizes that he is the man who took refuge in her room; he has come to return the coat he was given as a disguise when making his escape. When he appears, she begs him not to reveal the identities of the women who aided him and tries to get him out of the way quickly. Just as he is going, Petkoff appears and insists that he stay, especially to help with the transport of the regiments. Raina enters and blurts out: “Oh! The chocolate cream soldier!” She manages to cover her mistake, and Bluntschli is prevailed upon to stay as a guest.

Act 3
occurs after lunch the same day. In the Petkoffs’ library, Sergius and Bluntschli are writing orders for the movement of troops while Petkoff reads his paper. Petkoff wants his comfortable old coat but cannot find it. Catherine says that it is in the blue closet (where she has put it after getting it back from Bluntschli). To Petkoff’s amazement, Nicola returns with the coat. All leave except Raina and Bluntschli, who talk of lies (Raina’s), gratitude, and practicality versus the false idealism of romanticism. Bluntschli sees through her pretense of noble ideals, and when Raina suddenly realizes this she admits that he has found her out. Raina says that she put a photograph of herself in the pocket of the loaned coat. Bluntschli, however, pawned the coat; since he never found the photograph, it is presumably still in the coat. Bluntschli receives delayed mail which tells him that his father is dead and has left a number of big hotels to him; he determines to leave for Switzerland within the hour and exits.

Raina leaves, and Louka and Nicola talk. Nicola, a practical man, suggests that in the long run it would be better if Louka and Sergius married and became very profitable customers for Nicola—but Louka must not be impertinent or she will lose her (and his) chances. Sergius enters and, after Nicola leaves, plays up to Louka again, since he is still disillusioned about life and his own inability to measure up to his ideals. Louka tells Sergius that Raina will marry Bluntschli, the secret lover she had intimated to Sergius earlier. Bluntschli enters and Sergius challenges him to a duel; Bluntschli agrees, taking a very practical view of the affair—he chooses machine guns. Raina enters and wants to know why they are going to fight. Raina now suspects what is going on with Louka and becomes disenchanted with Sergius. Sergius concludes that life is a farce and now there is no need for a duel. Raina comments that Sergius will have to fight Nicola, since he is Louka’s fiance; Sergius becomes even more disillusioned with life.

Louka has been listening at the door, and Sergius pulls her in just before Petkoff enters and wants his coat again. Raina gets it from Nicola, helps her father put it on, and slips the photograph (which Petkoff had found earlier and had been mystified by) from the pocket. Bluntschli reveals to all that he was the chocolate cream soldier. Louka and Sergius become engaged. Bluntschli laments that, in spite of his cool, efficient exterior, he has always had a romantic streak which led him to run away from home, to join the army, and to return the coat in person, hoping to see Raina again. When Bluntschli discovers that Raina is really twenty-three and not seventeen, as he had supposed, he swiftly proposes. When challenged by the Petkoffs about his station and prospects, he informs them that he has just inherited six hotels, many horses and carriages, and much equipment. Catherine is now impressed, and Raina, after pretending to sulk, agrees to marry Bluntschli. With a final businesslike remark to Petkoff about troop movements, Bluntschli promises to return punctually in two weeks and takes his leave. Sergius supplies the final comment: “What a man! Is he a man!”

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Ode to the West Wind

The first stanza begins with the alliteration ‘wild West Wind’(1.1). The form of the apostrophe makes the wind also a personification. However, one must not think of this ‘Ode’ as an optimistic praise of the wind; it is clearly associated with autumn. The first few lines contain sinister elements, such as ‘leaves dead’ (l. 2), the aspect of death being highlighted by the inversion which puts ‘dead’ (l. 2) at the end of the line. These leaves haunt as ‘ghosts’ (l. 3) that flee from something that panics them.
‘chariotest’ (l. 6) is the second person singular. The ‘corpse within its grave’ (l. 8) in the next line is in contrast to the ‘azure sister of the Spring’ (l. 9) – a reference to the east wind – whose ‘living hues and odours’ (l.12) evoke a strong contrast to the colors of the fourth line of the poem that evoke death. In the last line of this canto the west wind is considered the ‘Destroyer’ (l. 14) because it drives the last signs of life from the trees, and the ‘Preserver’ (l.14) for scattering the seeds which will come to life in the spring.

Second Canto

The second canto of the poem is much more fluid than the first one. The sky’s ‘clouds’ (l. 16) are ‘like earth’s decaying leaves’ (l. 16). They are a reference to the second line of the first canto (‘leaves dead’, l. 2).They also are numerous in number like the dead leaves. Through this reference the landscape is recalled again. The ‘clouds’ (l. 16) are ‘Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean’ (l. 17). This probably refers to the fact that the line between the sky and the stormy sea is indistinguishable and the whole space from the horizon to the zenith is covered with trailing storm clouds. The ‘clouds’ can also be seen as ‘Angels of rain’ (l. 18). In a biblical way, they may be messengers that bring a message from heaven down to earth through rain and lightning. These two natural phenomena with their “fertilizing and illuminating power” bring a change.
Line 21 begins with ‘Of some fierce Maenad ...’ (l. 21) and again the west wind is part of the second canto of the poem; here he is two things at once: first he is ‘dirge/Of the dying year’ (l. 23f) and second he is “a prophet of tumult whose prediction is decisive”; a prophet who does not only bring ‘black rain, and fire, and hail’ (l. 28), but who ‘will burst’ (l. 28) it. The ‘locks of the approaching storm’ (l. 23) are the messengers of this bursting: the ‘clouds’.
Shelley also mentions that when the West Wind blows, it seems to be singing a funeral song about the year coming to an end and that the sky covered with a dome of clouds looks like a 'sepulchre' i.e. a burial chamber or grave for the dying year or the year which is coming to an end.
Shelley in this canto “expands his vision from the earthly scene with the leaves before him to take in the vaster commotion of the skies”. This means that the wind is now no longer at the horizon and therefore far away, but he is exactly above us. The clouds now reflect the image of the swirling leaves; this is a parallelism that gives evidence that we lifted “our attention from the finite world into the macrocosm”. The ‘clouds’ can also be compared with the leaves; but the clouds are more unstable and bigger than the leaves and they can be seen as messengers of rain and lightning as it was mentioned above.

Third Canto

This refers to the effect of west wind in the water. The question that comes up when reading the third canto at first is what the subject of the verb ‘saw’ (l. 33) could be. On the one hand there is the ‘blue Mediterranean’ (l. 30). With the ‘Mediterranean’ as subject of the canto, the “syntactical movement” is continued and there is no break in the fluency of the poem; it is said that ‘he lay, / Lull’d by the coil of his crystalline streams,/Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay, / And saw in sleep old palaces and towers’ (l. 30–33). On the other hand it is also possible that the lines of this canto refer to the ‘wind’ again. Then the verb that belongs to the ‘wind’ as subject is not ‘lay’, but the previous line of this canto, that says ‘Thou who didst waken ... And saw’ (l. 29, 33). But whoever – the ‘Mediterranean’ or the ‘wind’ – ‘saw’ (l. 33) the question remains whether the city one of them saw, is real and therefore a reflection on the water of a city that really exists on the coast; or the city is just an illusion. Pirie is not sure of that either. He says that it might be “a creative you interpretation of the billowing seaweed; or of the glimmering sky reflected on the heaving surface”. Both possibilities seem to be logical. To explain the appearance of an underwater world, it might be easier to explain it by something that is realistic; and that might be that the wind is able to produce illusions on the water. With its pressure, the wind “would waken the appearance of a city”. From what is known of the ‘wind’ from the last two cantos, it became clear that the ‘wind’ is something that plays the role of a Creator. Whether the wind creates real things or illusions does not seem to be that important.
Baiae's bay (at the northern end of the Gulf of Naples) actually contains visible Roman ruins underwater (that have been shifted due to earthquakes.) Obviously the moss and flowers are seaweed.
It appears as if the third canto shows – in comparison with the previous cantos – a turning-point. Whereas Shelley had accepted death and changes in life in the first and second canto, he now turns to “wistful reminiscence [, recalls] an alternative possibility of transcendence”. From line 26 to line 36 he gives an image of nature. But if we look closer at line 36, we realise that the sentence is not what it appears to be at first sight, because it obviously means ‘so sweet that one feels faint in describing them’. This shows that the idyllic picture is not what it seems to be and that the harmony will certainly soon be destroyed. A few lines later, Shelley suddenly talks about ‘fear’ (l. 41). This again shows the influence of the west wind which announces the change of the season.

Fourth Canto

Whereas the cantos one to three began with ‘O wild West Wind’ (l. 1) and ‘Thou...’ (l. 15, 29) and were clearly directed to the wind, there is a change in the fourth canto. The focus is no more on the ‘wind’, but on the speaker who says ‘If I...’ (l. 43f). Until this part, the poem has appeared very anonymous and was only concentrated on the ‘wind’ and its forces so that the author of the poem was more or less forgotten. Pirie calls this “the suppression of personality” which finally vanishes at that part of the poem. It becomes more and more clear that what the author talks about now is himself. That this must be true, shows the frequency of the author’s use of the first-person pronouns ‘I’ (l. 43, 44, 48, 51, 54), ‘my’ (l. 48, 52) and ‘me’ (l. 53). These pronouns appear nine times in the fourth canto. Certainly the author wants to dramatise the atmosphere so that the reader recalls the situation of canto one to three. He achieves this by using the same pictures of the previous cantos in this one. Whereas these pictures, such as ‘leaf’, ‘cloud’ and ‘wave’ have existed only together with the ‘wind’, they are now existing with the author. The author thinks about being one of them and says ‘If I were a ...’ (l. 43ff). Shelley here identifies himself with the wind, although he knows that he cannot do that, because it is impossible for someone to put all the things he has learned from life aside and enter a “world of innocence”. That Shelley is deeply aware of his closedness in life and his identity shows his command in line 53. There he says ‘Oh, lift me up as a wave, a leaf, a cloud’ (l. 53). He knows that this is something impossible to achieve, but he does not stop praying for it. The only chance Shelley sees to make his prayer and wish for a new identity with the Wind come true is by pain or death, as death leads to rebirth. So, he wants to ‘fall upon the thorns of life’ and ‘bleed’ (l. 54).
At the end of the canto the poet tells us that ‘a heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d’ (l. 55). This may be a reference to the years that have passed and ‘chained and bowed’ (l. 55) the hope of the people who fought for freedom and were literally imprisoned. With this knowledge, the West Wind becomes a different meaning. The wind is the ‘uncontrollable’ (l. 47) who is ‘tameless’ (l. 56).
One more thing that one should mention is that this canto sounds like a kind of prayer or confession of the poet. This confession does not address God and therefore sounds very impersonal.
Shelley also changes his use of metaphors in this canto. In the first cantos the wind was a metaphor explained at full length. Now the metaphors are only weakly presented – ‘the thorns of life’ (l. 54). Shelley also leaves out the fourth element: the fire. In the previous cantos he wrote about the earth, the air and the water. The reader now expects the fire – but it is not there. This leads to a break in the symmetry.

Fifth Canto

Again the wind is very important in this last canto. At the beginning of the poem the ‘wind’ was only capable of blowing the leaves from the trees. In the previous canto the poet identified himself with the leaves. In this canto the ‘wind’ is now capable of using both of these things mentioned before.
Everything that had been said before was part of the elements – wind, earth and water. Now the fourth element comes in: the fire.
There is also a confrontation in this canto: whereas in line 57 Shelley writes ‘me thy’, there is ‘thou me’ in line 62. This “signals a restored confidence, if not in the poet’s own abilities, at least in his capacity to communicate with [...] the Wind”.
It is also necessary to mention that the first-person pronouns again appear in a great frequency; but the possessive pronoun ‘my’ predominates. Unlike the frequent use of the ‘I’ in the previous canto that made the canto sound self-conscious, this canto might now sound self-possessed. The canto is no more a request or a prayer as it had been in the fourth canto – it is a demand. The poet becomes the wind’s instrument – his ‘lyrce’ (l. 57). This is a symbol of the poet’s own passivity towards the wind; he becomes his musician and the wind’s breath becomes his breath. The poet’s attitude towards the wind has changed: in the first canto the wind has been an ‘enchanter’ (l. 3), now the wind has become an ‘incantation’ (l. 65).
And there is another contrast between the two last cantos: in the fourth canto the poet had articulated himself in singular: ‘a leaf’ (l. 43, 53), ‘a cloud’ (l. 44, 53), ‘A wave’ (l. 45, 53) and ‘One too like thee’ (l. 56). In this canto, the “sense of personality as vulnerably individualised led to self-doubt” and the greatest fear was that what was ‘tameless, and swift, and proud’ (l. 56) will stay ‘chain’d and bow’d’ (l. 55). The last canto differs from that. The poet in this canto uses plural forms, for example, ‘my leaves’ (l. 58, 64), ‘thy harmonies’ (l. 59), ‘my thoughts’ (l. 63), ‘ashes and sparks’ (l. 67) and ‘my lips’ (l. 68). By the use of the plural, the poet is able to show that there is some kind of peace and pride in his words. It even seems as if he has redefined himself because the uncertainty of the previous canto has been blown away. The ‘leaves’ merge with those of an entire forest and ‘Will’ become components in a whole tumult of mighty harmonies. The use of this ‘Will’ (l. 60) is certainly a reference to the future. Through the future meaning, the poem itself does not only sound as something that might have happened in the past, but it may even be a kind of ‘prophecy’ (l. 69) for what might come – the future.
At last, Shelley again calls the Wind in a kind of prayer and even wants him to be ‘his’ Spirit: he says: ‘My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!’ (l. 62). Like the leaves of the trees in a forest, his leaves will fall and decay and will perhaps soon flourish again when the spring comes. That may be why he is looking forward to the spring and asks at the end of the last canto ‘If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’ (l. 70). This is of course a rhetorical question because spring does come after winter, but the "if" suggests that it might not come if the rebirth is strong and extensive enough, and if it is not, another renewal---spring---will come anyway. Thus the question has a deeper meaning and does not only mean the change of seasons, but is a reference to death and rebirth as well. It also indicates that after the struggles and problems in life, there would always be a solution. It shows us the optimistic view of the poet about life which he would like the world to know. It is an interpretation of his saying 'If you are suffering now, there will be good times ahead.' But the most powerful call to the Wind are the lines: "Drive my dead thoughts over the universe/like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!" Here Shelley is imploring---or really chanting to---the Wind to blow away all of his useless thoughts so that he can be a vessel for the Wind and, as a result, awaken the Earth.