Comprehension of "A hard rain's gonna fall"

Translation of the 5^th and 6^th  stanza

E cosa hai sentito figlio mio dagli occhi azzurri?

Oh, cos' hai sentito tesoro mio?

Ho sentito il rombo di un tuono, come un avviso,

Ho sentito lo scroscio di un' onda che poteva travolgere il mondo intero,

Ho sentito cento batteristi le cui mani erano infuocate,

Ho sentito dieci mila persone sussurrare e nessuna ascoltare,

Ho sentito qualcuno morire di fame e ho sentito molti ridere,

Ho sentito la canzone di un poeta che morì in povertà,

Ho sentito un pagliaccio piangere in un vicolo.

E una dura, dura, dura, dura, dura pioggia sta per cadere.

- The son has travelled the world: he crossed big roads, forests, oceans and mountains.

- In the second stanza the son describes what he has seen during his trip

-  a young girl, she gave me the rainbow; I'll tell it, think it, breath it  and reflect it from the mountains so all souls can see it à these lines suggest hope

- He will tell something to the world before dying

- He has retained the incremental repetition of the mother's questions and the repetition of the same two lines at the of every answer. You can also note the use of alliteration like in the traditional ballad.

- Incremental repetition surely makes memorization easy and underlines the excessive oddity of the mother. On the other side, the alliterative use of harsh sounds adds sadness to the ballad.

Interpretation

The adjectives crooked, misty and dead suggest the reader a harsh setting and give an idea of the difficult trip of the protagonist in an insane world.

The ten thousand talkers with broken tongues could mean that people can't react and find a solution in order to save the world; they can't speak anymore and they aren't able to involve people and face problems.

The problems in the 4^th stanza are: death, racism, hate and tough love.

Finally, the protagonist looks at the future: his role is to involve the reader, open his eyes, make him fight to change the world, because even if it's complicated, everyone can contribute to make the world better and face problems.

Maybe Dylan chose Lord Randal as a source for his song because it was famous and the presence of questions and answers allowed him to reflect upon problems and future.

The images that impressed me most are:

Heard one person starve, heard many people laughing because, in my opinion, it perfectly represents some people's  indifference and obduracy to the others' problems and pain; what's more, the weak person is always alone, he can just rely on himself.

The new born baby with wild wolves around him means that life is hard. Even if you are small, alone and weak, you are always in danger. As a consequence, you have to leave your candor behind and fight because no one will save you.

Creative Writing Workshop

•1)      I saw a child playing with a wolf on the grass

I saw a tree, whose branches were covered by diamonds

I saw a man burning guns and hammers down

I saw the moon shining like the sun