'Refugee Blues' by W H Auden

Title: Refugee Blues

Genre: Poem 

Author: W H Auden

Year: 1939 

Context: period of uncertainty, worry and short security. Problems faced included economic collapse and the Great Depression. Italy, Russia, Spain and Germany were looking for solutions - dictatorship, totalitarianism. Germany formed an alliance with Italy and Japan, called axis powers, militarism, eventually prompting the start of World War II. 

Theme: sadness of German Jews in aftermath of World War I

Technique	Quote	Effect
Rhyme AAB in every stanza Repetition in the last line		Adds flow, adds an outline and a uniqueness to the poem.
Juxtaposition	‘If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead’ ‘But we are still alive’	Coldly displays emptiness and confusion within the protagonists, creating a lost and sad feeling.
Repetition  Direct speech	‘My dear’  ‘You and me’	Showcases the speaker’s softness and calmness in the face of adversity, create a sense of love, intimacy and admiration Challenges perceptions of refugees as thieves and savages
Visual imagery		Emphasises the plight of refugees as being mistreated, met with less kindness than that shown to a yew, cats, poodle and birds
Military imagery		Exhibits harshness and anxiety

 Written in 1939, W H Auden’s poem Refugee Blues is set during the interwar period of uncertainty, worry and short security, economic collapse and the Great Depression. Germany, under a totalitarian regime, formed the axis powers, eventually prompting the start of World War II, thus displacing people and refugees fled. Within every stanza, Auden follows an AAB rhyme scheme and repetition in the last line, creating unique flow and structure. He then uses juxtaposition in ‘If you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead’

‘But we are still alive’. This evokes the cold and hostility faced by the protagonists who are German Jews, creating a sense of loss and doom. He then uses direct speech with repetition in ‘My dear' and ‘You and me’ to showcase the speaker’s softness and calmness in the face of adversity, create a sense of love, intimacy and admiration and it challenges perceptions of refugees as thieves and savages. Continuing on, he uses two types of imagery, visual imagery and military imagery. These really exhibit the harsh and war torn environment during that period. He uses visual imagery to emphasise the plight of refugees as being mistreated, met with less kindness than that shown to a yew, cats, poodle and birds and military imagery to exhibit the harshness and anxiety.