Despair and Fear in Poem Refugee Blues

Despair and Fear in Refugee Blues

During the late years of the Second World War, fear and despair were perhaps the most common emotions that the Jewish felt; the Holocaust was in action. Written in 1939 by W. H. Auden, Refugee Blues revolves around a refugee couple; a Jewish man and his wife (however, this is unsure because she is only referred to as “my dear” throughout the poem), fleeing from German soldiers, with survival and freedom as their only goal.

This essay will explore to what extent the refugee couple, innocent victims of war, within Refugee Blues is experiencing the emotions of despair and fear.

Firstly, the choice of title must be mentioned. “Blues” is a type of slow, sad music, consisting of three-line stanzas, and repetition at the end of each stanza in addition to the first two lines of each stanza rhyming. They were first sung by African-American slaves, and were used to express their sadness from the constant torture they endured each day.

This poem follows many patterns of Blues music, which very much relates to the refugees who live in fear and despair every day; homeless, isolated, awaiting death – thereby suggesting that fear and despair are indeed significant factors in this piece.

The reader first becomes aware of the emotion of despair in the first stanza in which Auden contrasts between the lives of the rich and the poor by describing what they live in:

“Say this city has ten million souls,

Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes,”

In these first two lines, Auden makes use of the metaphor “living in holes” – this represents poverty and inferiority.

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Auden also deliberately uses “ten million” to exaggerate and express just how many people there are in this city. The following line is the first hint towards the poem’s main theme:

“Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.”

Auden creates the idea with this line, that the Jewish man is inferior even to those who are “living in holes,” because of his ethnicity; racial discrimination is one of the main causes of despair and fear as well as themes for this poem. The exaggeration that there are almost ten million people in Germany accentuates how inferior, lonely and isolated they are. This contrast of living environments relates back to the title Refugee Blues; the Jewish man and his wife have become homeless, innocent victims of war due to extreme racial discrimination; Hitler believed it was the fault of the Jewish that Germany had fallen in the first world war. This fact again presents the idea that the couple within this piece is experiencing the emotion of despair.

The Tower of Babel is a legendary building constructed by man that was said to transcend even the heavens – this was a myth from millennia ago. This tower angered God; God had perceived the purpose of this tower, which was to reach farther than the heavens, farther than Him. God sensed the betrayal of the united race He created Himself, and so He scattered the human race thinly across the Earth, and separated the lands, the seas, the skies. At this time, He also made the humans speak different languages, to prevent them from uniting and rebelling against Him ever again. This myth is related to the poem because of the separation of the human race – the Jewish are being hunted by the Germans through misunderstanding and selfishness, although they were a part of the same human society.

A word that Auden uses very effectively to describe the feelings of the Jewish couple is “once”. This simple word symbolizes all their lives, of what was and what is. Auden associates this word with the old Germany before it turned into a country of chaos:

“Once we had a country and we thought it fair,

Look in the atlas and you’ll find it there:

We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.”

The idea of loss is exhibited in the above quotation, and through this Auden gives further emphasis to the depth of despair being felt by the couple described within this piece. An atlas is often used as a representation of the world, but the fact that “we cannot go there now” is used emphasizes their loneliness and isolation to the rest of the world; they are not just homeless in Germany, but to the rest of the world as well. Another implication of the word “atlas” is found in the following stanzas.

The next stanza uses a yew tree in a churchyard to express despair. Yew trees often imply death due to the poison it holds inside, which is reason why it is grown near churchyards in this context. Yew trees are also placed near graveyards because of they symbolize longevity; yew trees can live for thousands of years, sheltering over the dead – this complements the dire state that the couple is currently in:

“In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,

Every spring it blossoms anew;

Old passports can’t do that, my dear, old passports can’t do that.”

Yew trees are also thought to as a symbol of rebirth. This contrasts with the idea of “old passports”, which cannot be renewed through time naturally; there are no such things as “blossoming passports”. The emphasis on passports is exemplified further in a line within the next stanza:

““If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead”;”

In the above line, the poet illustrates just how important a passport is, as a symbol of legal identity in Germany. Auden uses the words “officially dead” to demonstrate the fact that possessing a passport means possessing a right to live. Using “officially” in this sense implies the fact that without a passport, you are dead in the eyes of the law. This also relates back to the stanza in which “atlas” is used; without passports, you have no identity, no home; you cannot even travel between countries. This puts emphasis on the fact that the couple are trapped in Germany, with nowhere to go.

However, to some extent it can be seen that the couple are not despairing. This belief is prevalent in the fifth stanza in which the couple enters the committee and asks for help:

“Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;

Asked me politely to return next year:

But where shall we go to-day, my dear, where shall we go to-day?”

This suggests the question: “Will they even make it to next year?” Their fading hopes are emphasized by the word “to-day”; this contrasts with the word “year” in the previous line, because they cannot survive until next year, and ask the committee once again, if they cannot even survive today.

Regarding the above point, the two couples may not actually be despairing. The fact that they were “offered” a chair, and were asked “politely” to leave, may counter the emotion of despair with hope, warmth and security; in this sense, fear and despair are not significant factors of this piece after all.

Nevertheless, the words “next year” imply that the committee thinks of them as inferior, as people not worth bothering with – they are simply mocking the couple, trying to get them away from the committee quickly so they do not need to ‘soil their hands’. Furthermore, the couple’s despair and hopelessness is brought back at the last line, “where shall we go to-day, my dear, where shall we go to-day?”

At this point the reader may notice that one line of each stanza is repeated – a refrain – at the end of every stanza. The typical layout for this line is as follows:

“Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.”

The format remains the same throughout the poem but the words change, while the endearment stays the same throughout. This is very significant, because it accentuates fear, confusion, and most of all, hopelessness. The Jewish man asks himself the same questions and says the same things repeatedly, hoping they would receive help, because every time the Jewish man uses the refrain, the poem gets more and more intense, as well as depressing. The gradual progression of the poem greatly builds up the despair and hopelessness being experienced by the couple, as stated in the first paragraph of this essay.

Three distinct roles of both the protagonists and antagonists become clear after the previously mentioned stanza. First come the “victims”, which are the protagonists of the poem; the fleeing refugee couple. Their fear and despair, which become significant factors in this poem is caused by the “perpetrator”, Adolf Hitler. Then, there are the “bystanders”, which are the officials such as the “consul” who banged the table, and the “committee” which was supposed to provide help and shelter. These bystanders have the power and authority to help the victims, but choose not to, for their own safety – anyone who was to help the Jewish will be executed. These three roles are important because they clarify and explain how the refugee couple ended up in their pitiful, lonely state.

Pathetic fallacy is used in the next significant stanza. It uses the image of an imminent storm brewing to suggest despair and hopelessness:

“Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;

It was Hitler over Europe, saying: “They must die’;”

The reference to Hitler’s overpowering voice across Germany as “thunder rumbling in the sky” shows fear in the man’s thoughts in the form of a metaphor, and is emphasized in the next refrain:

“We were in his mind, my dear, we were in his mind.”

This line again shows fear, and even a hint of panic, when the Jewish man refers to Hitler’s mind. It is made clear that Hitler now has complete control over Germany, like thunder in the sky, or even a God; he alone controls the power to strike anything down. The fact that Auden uses “Hitler over Europe” instead of “Hitler over Germany” implies just how hopeless the Jewish couple’s situation was; fleeing was not even an option, because of Hitler’s power over the whole of Europe. Also, the monosyllabic words “They must die” shows Hitler’s rage and absolute power, representing fear and panic. This, beyond doubt informs the reader that the couple is indeed despairing.

The next two stanzas emphasize the couple’s dreams and desires for freedom. Firstly, Auden shows their desires by comparing them to animals and creating a sense of inferiority:

“Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:

Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.”

The sense that the Jewish couple is inferior to even the fish swimming by in the harbor is created here; even the fish have the rights to freedom, yet the couple does not. Auden puts emphasis and repeats the word “only” to express the couple’s strong desire for freedom, and uses “as if” to hint jealousy towards the fish which could swim as they please, without a care in the world. This form of animal comparison is repeated again (for example, the poodles mentioned earlier in the poem) in the next stanza:

“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.”

After the comparison with the fish, they are now made inferior to the birds that are free to “sing at their ease”. There are two parts are important and reveal a lot about Germany during the Holocaust: “no politicians” and “weren’t the human race”. The politicians at the time did nothing to help the Jewish, and simply stood by and watched as they were slowly slaughtered by Hitler’s personal army, known as the Schutzstaffel; they have chosen to align themselves with Hitler and become “perpetrators”. The phrase “weren’t the human race” may refer to the politicians, standing so high and mighty, with so much power, yet doing nothing to stop this meaningless slaughter. Alternatively, that quote could also refer to the birds singing to the trees, free of fear and despair simply because they were not born human.

Finally, this poem also suggests another theme, and that is exclusion from society. This is cleverly done by Auden, and is shown in a dream that the man had:

“Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,

A thousand windows and a thousand doors;

Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.”

Firstly, it is important to consider the significance of the word “dreamed”. A dream is often a fantasy from our subconscious, sometimes caused by desire. A dream is often impossible to reach, impossible to obtain, and that is how Auden expresses the Jewish man’s feelings; the man yearns for freedom, he does not wish to be excluded, he has done nothing wrong. Secondly, the repetition of the words “a thousand” is evidence of exaggeration employed to emphasize just how isolated they are and how much despair they must be feeling. This repetition relates back to the phrase in the first stanza, “ten million souls”. The effect of this will be explained after the use of exaggeration and repetition in the next and final paragraph.

As a summary of the poem, the last stanza integrates all the ideas of the poem and puts it into two lines:

“Stood on a great plain in the falling snow:

Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:”

These lines summarize perhaps the entire poem; the exclusion from society, and the direness of the couple’s situation. The “great plain in the falling snow” symbolizes absolutely no protection against the cold weather, which also implies no protection against the ten thousand soldiers looking for them; there is no shelter around for miles. The phrase “falling snow” may imply depression, because snow is often associated with sadness and death; many people have frozen to death in such conditions. While the couple stands freezing on the great plain, everyone else stays in their warm homes, paying no attention to their lives; the couple is Jewish, therefore their suffering does not concern or upset anyone. “Ten thousand soldiers” is again exaggeration used to allow the reader to imagine the horror of the situation; the couple has an incredibly small chance to escape ten thousand soldiers, who are bent on hunting them down. This is also a form of the repetition that resonates throughout the poem (from the repetition of “thousand” in the previous stanza and “ten million” in the first stanza); the effect and purpose of these repetitions is to state the fact that it is the couple fighting against the rest of the world. This again emphasizes the idea of loss; the loss of hope as well as beginnings of despair.

In conclusion, this poem greatly emphasizes the direness of the Holocaust, the emotions of the Jewish people during which and the life of a discriminated refugee couple as they seek to elude the fate that awaits them when they get captured and imprisoned by the Nazis. Furthermore, the couple in this poem may also be considered as an extended metaphor for the entire Jewish population at large during and throughout the holocaust. That aside, the implicit, but constant question remains even after Auden has ended the poem: Did they survive? This question is further emphasized by final refrain:

“Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.”

This line shows the fact that they are out of choices – they can only hide and cling onto their fading hopes; the entire poem’s refrains build up for this purpose alone. Not only the refrains, but Auden also constantly uses numbers to exaggerate and express the couple’s despair; for example the contrast and repetition between the use of numbers in the previous stanza (the repetition of “thousand”, but using “not one of them was ours” in the next line). With this, it is beyond a shadow of doubt that the couple in this piece is indeed despairing greatly.