Under Milk Wood

A special dance is planned in the evening, and the people of Llareggub excitedly prepare for it. Mrs. Ogmore-Pritchard reflects on her grief, calling out to her dead husbands. Their ghosts “ooze and grumble” (56), then come to her, and she settles into her routine of nagging them and ordering them around. Black Jack heads to Milk Wood, hoping to break up the trysts. He believes that the lovers are sinners. Reverend Jenkins recites his “sunset poem” for the town. He believes in the local people, saying that they are all complex souls. None are truly evil, while none are completely good. He hopes that God will judge them carefully.

In the Sailors Arms, the men drinking insist that dancing is a sin and not “natural.” They become increasingly intoxicated, and Mr. Waldo sings a mournful tune. Still dreaming, Captain Cat sees his dead friends again. Rosie tells him that she has now “forgotten dying.” Each night, Organ Morgan plays the church organ for anyone who will listen. In the churchyard, he mistakes a drunken Cherry Owen for the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Myfanwy Price and Mog Edwards write more letters, knowing that they can never meet in person.