Ode to the West Blog

Percy Shelley's Ode to the West Wind describes how the wind is both a "destroyer" and a "preserver", and about social change: how an old idea must be destroyed so a new one can take its place.  Shelley used his ability as a poet to change things and inspire people, just like I want to one day use my ability as a writer to uncover injustices and change things.  I was reminded of a movie we watched in Social Justice this year called The Killing Fields, where it depicts the story of a journalist and photographer, Sydney, in Cambodia during Pol Pot's bloody cleansing campaign which claimed the lives of about three million civilians.  Sydney receives Journalist of the Year award at a banquet in 1976 for helping to release the story of the events occuring in Cambodia.  This connects to Ode to the West Wind as both Pol Pot with his campaign and Sydney with his journalism could be described as the wind.  Pol Pot is the "destroyer", while Sydney could be like the "preserver", as one is wrecking the environment and the people, and the other is trying to protect and save them all from destruction.