Refugee Blues – WH Auden
· Speaker: Jewish refugee who has escaped from Germany during the war
· Themes: focusses on isolation, loneliness, exile, trauma and pain if being forced to leave home
(1) Anti-Semitism + Complexity in Prejudice
· Jews faced two types of anti-Semitism: (1) the Nazi regime with state-sanctioned
violence against the Jews (2) countries who used immigration quotas to exclude Jewish
people, even though they had the power to save a refugee’s life
· Poem = accusation against society – insists that they are complicit in Jews’ suffering
· To not actively step in and stop the prejudice is its own form of cruelty
· Even though the countries do not announce their opposition to the Jews (like the Nazis),
their behaviour reveals it
· Cruel – without their protection, the Jews are facing a certain death
(2) Exile + Loneliness
· People in the city would rather take in pets than humans – speaker feels friendless and
profoundly lonely
· Speaker seems jealous of animals because they do not have to deal with hateful
politicians like humans
· Speaker has given up on changing minds of politicians, even though they have power to
change the laws that exclude Jewish people – poet expresses sadness and frustration
with the human race as a whole
· Mood: bleak, mournful, cathartic
· Form: strong rhythm imitates a melancholy ballad (Blues Music) – songs of sadness/mourning
· Meter: broad variations in line length makes the poem feel unsteady – this represents the struggle of
the refugees as they have nowhere safe/secure to go (the poems unsteadiness represents the
refugees’ insecurity)
· Rhyme scheme: AAB – singsong feel that makes the poem sound like Blues music
In each stanza, the third line is a lonely/isolated at the refugees themselves – stuck at end of stanza
without companionship
Function of rhyme scheme: (1) makes poem into a blues (2) echoes isolation/alienation of refugees,
who do not fit in anywhere
· The city houses over ten million people, but
1 Say this city has ten million souls, doesn’t have space for two refugees – what
difference will it make?
2
Some are living in mansions, some are living · Contrast: rich vs poor – the refugees don’t care
in holes: because they just want somewhere to go
· Jews not regarded as human
· Irony: Jewish people have made huge
contribution to cultural/scientific/educational life of
European countries yet they were still
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet
3 disregarded
there's no place for us.
· Repetition: ‘my dear’ is a loving term (1)
contrasts to the terrible fate of the victims (2)
givens human voice to speaker (3) emphasises
that Jews were still human, despite persecution
·
· Tense: past tense – no longer true as they have
4 Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
no country any more
· Although the country still exists, they have no
5 Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
place to call home
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot · Sense of displacement – had to leave their whole
6
go there now. life behind
·
· Yew: a tree that traditionally grows in graveyards
– similar sound to ‘Jew’ suggests that some
In the village churchyard there grows an old
7 people associated Jews with death/disease
yew,
· Jews were denied respectful burials in
churchyards
· Every year there is regeneration in nature –
8 Every spring it blossoms anew:
nature believes in second chances
· Speaker: Jewish refugee who has escaped from Germany during the war
· Themes: focusses on isolation, loneliness, exile, trauma and pain if being forced to leave home
(1) Anti-Semitism + Complexity in Prejudice
· Jews faced two types of anti-Semitism: (1) the Nazi regime with state-sanctioned
violence against the Jews (2) countries who used immigration quotas to exclude Jewish
people, even though they had the power to save a refugee’s life
· Poem = accusation against society – insists that they are complicit in Jews’ suffering
· To not actively step in and stop the prejudice is its own form of cruelty
· Even though the countries do not announce their opposition to the Jews (like the Nazis),
their behaviour reveals it
· Cruel – without their protection, the Jews are facing a certain death
(2) Exile + Loneliness
· People in the city would rather take in pets than humans – speaker feels friendless and
profoundly lonely
· Speaker seems jealous of animals because they do not have to deal with hateful
politicians like humans
· Speaker has given up on changing minds of politicians, even though they have power to
change the laws that exclude Jewish people – poet expresses sadness and frustration
with the human race as a whole
· Mood: bleak, mournful, cathartic
· Form: strong rhythm imitates a melancholy ballad (Blues Music) – songs of sadness/mourning
· Meter: broad variations in line length makes the poem feel unsteady – this represents the struggle of
the refugees as they have nowhere safe/secure to go (the poems unsteadiness represents the
refugees’ insecurity)
· Rhyme scheme: AAB – singsong feel that makes the poem sound like Blues music
In each stanza, the third line is a lonely/isolated at the refugees themselves – stuck at end of stanza
without companionship
Function of rhyme scheme: (1) makes poem into a blues (2) echoes isolation/alienation of refugees,
who do not fit in anywhere
· The city houses over ten million people, but
1 Say this city has ten million souls, doesn’t have space for two refugees – what
difference will it make?
2
Some are living in mansions, some are living · Contrast: rich vs poor – the refugees don’t care
in holes: because they just want somewhere to go
· Jews not regarded as human
· Irony: Jewish people have made huge
contribution to cultural/scientific/educational life of
European countries yet they were still
Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet
3 disregarded
there's no place for us.
· Repetition: ‘my dear’ is a loving term (1)
contrasts to the terrible fate of the victims (2)
givens human voice to speaker (3) emphasises
that Jews were still human, despite persecution
·
· Tense: past tense – no longer true as they have
4 Once we had a country and we thought it fair,
no country any more
· Although the country still exists, they have no
5 Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:
place to call home
We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot · Sense of displacement – had to leave their whole
6
go there now. life behind
·
· Yew: a tree that traditionally grows in graveyards
– similar sound to ‘Jew’ suggests that some
In the village churchyard there grows an old
7 people associated Jews with death/disease
yew,
· Jews were denied respectful burials in
churchyards
· Every year there is regeneration in nature –
8 Every spring it blossoms anew:
nature believes in second chances
