A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall
Shifting between ironic and non ironic phrases in “A Hard Rain’s a Gonna Fall” Bob Dylan crafts sensory syntactical patterns, tragic hyperboles, and a paradoxical phrases in order to display the horrors that happen in the world, presenting them as “a hard rain.”
Dylan writes a collection of statements that all verify a question asked by a separate character. The assumed parent, talking to his/her “blue eyed son” asks questions like “where have you been” to which the “darling young one” replies with a series of alliterative descriptions of the places he has been, all possessing a dark tone. He is asked “What did you see?” “What did you hear?” “Who did you meet?” and “What’ll you do now?” Dylan organizes his verses in distinct syntactical patterns, all having to do with the body’s senses. What the “son” “saw” “heard” and felt. In each grouping Dylan represents the horror and tragic events happening through the perspective of senses. The listener is permitted to experience the “guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children” through the sense of sight, which also relates to the type of imagery that Dylan forms throughout the song.
Dylan represents the horrific events happening in the world in hyperbolic statements. He exaggerates the extremity and the amount of tragedy sweeping the nations. He sees each of the tragic events as “a wave that could drown the whole world.” By making such extreme statements he allows the listener to realize the full implications of each event. The speaker did not see one, a few, or even a dozen “talkers whose tongues were all broken” he sees “ten thousand” which is a much more extreme amount of suffering which impacts the audience to a larger degree. Dylan uses patterns in his ages with the repeated use of the word “young” to describe innocent “children” in less than ideal situations. “Young” women burn, “Young children” wield “guns and sharp swords” He uses hyperbolic ages, making sure that the victims of his tragedies are all young with innocent finesse, adding to his purpose of representing the horrific events of the world in a way that reaches out to the audience.
Dylan uses a multitude of statements that seem to oppose each other. He uses opposite words in the same statements creating an oxymoronic feel to his words. He mixes “white man” with “black dog” “newborn” babies are surrounded by blood thirsty “wolves” “one person” starves while other “people” are “laughin.’” However, many of his statements are actually in the form of paradoxes, they appear to conflict but they have the ability to relate with one another. “A man who was wounded in love” gives the impression of conflicting ideas. How could “love” have the ability to wound, when generally love is accepted a beneficial thing? Yet, the idea of love hurting, and sometimes being painful is also a widely accepted theme. His statement appears to disagree, but by using a new mind set, it agrees. Dylan’s method of making use of paradoxical statements adds an intelligent quality to his writing, as well as showing how complicated the issues are. “A poet who died in a gutter” is conflicting, a poet creates beautiful language and has a more refined sense of life, and yet he dies in a dirty and disrespecting place. Yet many poets are poor and make meager livings, so the idea of dying in a gutter does indeed make sense in that regard. Dylan’s paradoxes present how strange and unpredictable life is, as well as how horrific and unfair it can be.
Dylan represents the sadder aspects of human existence. The starvation, the death, and it’s absolutely nonsensical habits. He utilizes a plethora of paradoxical statements. He controls his syntax to have an organized and sensory based theme. He uses hyperbole to show how wide spread the tragedy is; it seems so large and uncontrollable. He makes use of all of these factors to show the audience how desperate and sad life can be; human existence is a “hard rain” that’s “a-gonna fall.
