Jewish refugees
Emotional critical society
Refugee Blues by W H Auden
Takes form of dramatic monologue
Theme: abuse human rights
Slow, traditional four beats per line
Language simple, message complex
Tone: depressing, chilling
Remind us f depths people can fall
Third line tends to be a reply
Say this city has ten million souls,-valuable, holy and all the same
Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes: people are treated differently because society
was unfair to people
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us. My dear- man speaking to wife
Once we had a country and we thought it fair,-when the Jews were taking to Germany the Jews
homes were left behind
Fair-security and safety
Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:-it no longer exists giving them no home or nationality. It is
taking away their humanity and rights
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.
In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,-implies natural world continual renewal of
contrast to peoples lives
Every spring it blossoms anew;
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.
The consul banged the table and said:
'If you've got no passport, you're officially dead';
But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.
Went to a committee; they offered me a chair; committee-charity
Asked me politely to return next year:-uncaring
But where shall we go today, my dear, but where shall we go today?-Jewish refugees could not get
a job or get involved in society
Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said:
'If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread'; lord prayer-behave in an unchristian way
He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.
Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;-metaphor- angry Hitler speeches rumble aircrafts
It was Hitler over Europe, saying: 'They must die';
We were in his mind, my dear, we were in his mind.
Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,
Saw a door opened and a cat let in:-people were treated worse than the common house pet
But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.
Went down the harbour and stood upon the quay,-irony-people in captivity- no passport or rights
Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:-jealous of how the animals were allowed to be free but
the Jews were not
Analogy of fish and birds: free in natural world, prejudice in human world
Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.-fish were only 10 feet away
Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;
They had no politicians and sang at their ease:
They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.- people did terrible things to
other people
Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,-sense that they don’t belong
A thousand windows and a thousand doors;-there is no room for them even though there is so
much space
Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.
Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;-reflects mood in poem (isolation and death and cold and
miserable)
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:-hunted down
Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.-scary way to end the poem as it is a
harsh reality of what they will have to face and struggle through to stay alive
-this is a powerful protest poem against Hitler
-political
This poem was written before World War 2