- Dylan’s use of imagery… Does it help him protest?
Dylan uses a personal and conversational tone in order to convey a direct message to the readers to portray his own experiences with the communists as he plays a role as a member of the John Birch Society. This allows him to connect more personally with his audience the details of his investigation. He puts himself on the same level as the commoners and to make it more relatable he also uses similar, casual diction such as “wus” and “commies”, the slang used by those in that period of time.
The colour Red is prominent in this song and it is presented as a symbol of communism. The persona of the song is shown to be fearful of this colour and starts to wonder whether its presence in the American flag would mean that America too is turning into a communist nation. “And discovered they wus red stripes on the American flag!” This visual imagery has helped to portray the effect the communists had on the citizens of America.
The phrases “They wus in the air” “They wus on the ground” further emphasizes this idea as it shows the omnipresence of the communists and the rate at which this type of governance and ideology was spreading. This is a very basic piece of visual imagery which describes the excessive presence of the communists in America. They were all over, figuratively “in the air” which shows that they had grown in number and had dominated the country.
.2. What is he protesting?
Dylan wrote this song about the John Birch Society an ultraconservative political organisation to fight communist threats. He mocks this society and the lack of freedom of speech that they have and the way in which they would accuse anyone they didn’t like to be a communist. This song carries the prominent message of the protection of free speech. Whenever Dylan was asked to an interview and play a song afterwards, and this was the song chosen, the producers were often against this idea and they didn’t let him perform it. As a result of this, Dylan chose not to participate at all and this in itself was a form of protest against those who weren’t allowing for freedom of speech, beliefs and ideas.
3. What would he protest about today?
In our current world, Dylan would have a lot to protest about. He could protest about the lack of female equality in our system or the lack of LGBTQ+ rights. Along with the many protests in this subject matter that already take place, Dylan’s music would have a powerful effect on those in question. He could have helped to unite and bring together people from different backgrounds, societies, generations in order to convey his message. His song, Like A Rolling Stone, would still be applicable in our current lives as it describes the inequalities present in our country in terms of financial and economical status. It describes effectively those people from a higher financial and social background and how they take their opportunities for granted. Dylan would also protest about climate change and how our Earth is deteriorating. Writing about this would send a very powerful message since it is often overlooked many-a-times. The effect of global warming and the causes of pollution is already a predominant idea in our society and to use art to talk about it is not something many are willing to do. Furthermore, Dylan could obviously talk about the Trump presidency and the global effects of it. He could talk about women objectification, racism, sexism and the recent laws and enforcements that Donald Trump has placed on his country almost separating it from the rest of the world.