Explication of the meaning of the wind in Jessamyn West's [title story in Love, Death, and the Ladies' Drill Team] clarifies the emotional structure of the story, especially the final paragraph, which reveals Emily Cooper's state of mind and defines the nature of the change that Emily undergoes in the course of the action. As in many Romantic poems wherein the wind is an analogue for subjective changes in the poet from despair to hope, from apathy to renewal, or from imaginative sterility to creative energy …, Miss West's wind is a symbolic device for mirroring and affecting Emily Cooper's feelings. In addition, there appears in the short story the Romantic image of the wind-harp as the figurative mediator between outer motion and inner emotion.

Early in the story, as Emily leans out the window of Burnham Hall observing the effects of the September wind in the street below...