Exploring Trauma and Displacement in W.H. Auden's Refugee Blues Poem

This essay provides a critical commentary on W.H. Auden's poem 'Refugee Blues,' focusing on its lyrical structure, thematic elements, and historical context within the Holocaust. The analysis explores the narrator's lamentation and alienation as a German Jew, highlighting themes of powerlessness, inhumanity, and the loss of freedom. The poem's use of simple language and refrains underscores the complex realities faced by war refugees, drawing attention to the political and social factors contributing to their displacement and suffering. The essay concludes by emphasizing the poem's enduring relevance as a depiction of trauma and the dangers of religious persecution, referencing the historical backdrop and the approaching threat of death faced by the refugees.

COMMENTARY ON W.H. AUDEN’S REFUGEE BLUES
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Refugee blues is a poem written by one of the famous war poets of all time, W.H. Auden. The
above mentioned poem has been dedicated for the Jews who had faced terrible time during the
reign of Hitler. Each and every line of this poem shows the lamentation regarding the fate of
them who were literally forced to leave Europe at the time of the Holocaust.1 Holocaust was that
time when the Jews were slaughtered, imprisoned and faced brutality of every sort. Thus, this
study focuses on a critical commentary on the poem discussing its structure and inner conflicts.
The poem has a lyrical tone where the last line of each stanza repeats the same expression twice.
On the other hand, the first two sentences of each stanza rhyme with each other. This implies that
the rhythm has been lost at the end or it can be assumed that the poet wanted to convey that the
rhythm of the lives of these refugees has been lost around the chaos of Holocaust. The poem has
single narrator who laments the present state of people like him who are connected with the same
thread for belonging from the same community of Jews.2 It has been found that the narrator
happens to be a German Jew who has suddenly been feeling to be alienated in his own home
land. The narrator has started his story by describing a city which is so large that ten million
individuals live there. It has been stated that the city is full of both rich and poor people along
with luxurious and shabby houses.3 This has been mentioned to state that despite being a large
city, this city has no place for him and for people like him. The narrator has referred to Palestine
while saying that he used to have his own country once upon a time. One thing that is important
here to note is that the narrator mentioned that he has come a long way from his actual country
that he cannot even go back to that land again. This shows the trauma of being an outsider who
belongs to nowhere as none accepts them as one of them.
1 Stuart Turner, "Refugee blues: A UK and European perspective", European Journal of
Psychotraumatology 6.1 (2015) 29-32, (p.3).
2 Dhini Gusnita, "Naivety as the paradox and irony of war in three war poems: douglas dunn’s after the war,
louis johnson’s bread and pension and wh auden’s refugee blues", E-Journal English Language and
Literature 1.3 (2013), 34-42, (p.39).
3 Oscar Labang, "Narrative of Distance And Exilic Melancholia in WH Auden’s “Refugee Blues”.", Journal
of the Association for Anglo-American Studies 11.2 (2014), 55-77, (p.71).
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Power has been an important theme in this poem that can be found in the description of how the
narrator is unable to go back to his own country as he does not have a new passport. This shows
that every politically powerful person gets the authority to dominate everyone who belongs to the
minority class and thus the powerless people becomes helpless eventually.4 The plight of the
narrator can be assumed from the tone of poem that loudly states that the narrator has become
hopeless and living has become a curse for him and other refugees. Significant information has
been shared by the narrator about the trauma that war refugees go through by describing his own
firsthand experience of being one. In this context, he foregrounds the hypocrisy of the people
who are supposed to help finding homes for war refugees.5 Again the dark side of political
power has been hinted when the narrator describes that the political leaders do not allow anyone
to help them as they are treated as outsiders who can never fit within. In addition, it has been
mentioned that common people of the land used to be manipulated by the powerful speakers at
public gatherings so that none comes forward to help the refugees in improving the state that
they were in.
As the poem crawls towards its end, the tone becomes more sordid. This can be seen in the lines
where the narrator compares the Jews with animals like dogs and cats and says that even they are
welcome in this city with open hands but not them. Inhumanity and fear both were the reasons
behind the behaviour that people of that city used to show towards the Jews.6 This is so because
it was the command of Hitler to kill them and thus their state became worse than insects all of a
sudden. As the poem progresses, the theme starts to become broader as gradually the narrator
shifts his focus from inhuman people of his city to the whole human race as being inhuman.
Among everything that were snatched from them, freedom was the most devastating one.
4 Asma Zahoor, "WH Auden’s Poem “Say the City Has Ten Million Souls: A Discourse of Displacement."
Journal of the Association for Anglo-American Studies 3.5 (2016), 141-148, (p.144).
5 Kathryn Magruder and others "Prevention and public health approaches to trauma and traumatic stress: A
rationale and a call to action." European journal of psychotraumatology 7.1 (2016), 1-9, (p.7).
6 Nando Sigona, "Everyday statelessness in Italy: Status, rights, and camps." Ethnic and Racial Studies 39.2
(2016): 263-279, (p.269).
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It can be said that the whole poem has been written in very simple language having common and
repeating rhyming words. On the other hand, the inner message of the poem has illuminated a
complex conflict of human life. In addition, the use of refrain in each stanza gives a song like
approach to the poem.7 The use of refrain has another purpose as each refrain states a realization
on the part of the narrator regarding the state that he was in. politics has been compared with
storm and thundering that implies that the reign of Hitler spread so much chaos that lives of
many people had been scattered during that time.
As mentioned earlier, each and every sentence has been framed in a way that can illuminate the
inner hopelessness of being a refugee. This hopelessness comes after knocking each door in
neighbouring countries for help. It has also been mentioned that some good people helped them
for a limited time but then they also shut the door on their face as gradually Hitler became the all
powerful individual in Germany.8 This poem is one of the finest epitomes of showing how
human beings can become so dangerous that they gets the audacity of killing people in the name
of religion. History is the background of the poem as each and everything stated in the poem
happened in reality and none of this is fictional. However, the dejected tone of the poem tries to
make the readers realize how traumatic can it be to live a life like sub humans who had none to
be with and had no home to stay in. finally, the poem ends with a hint that death is approaching
as soldiers of war has been coming near and nearer to capture them and kill them.
7 Christine Knaevelsrud, Nadine Stammel, Miranda Olff, "Traumatized refugees: identifying needs and
facing challenges for mental health care", European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 12.1 (2017), 1-3,
(p.3).
8 Marit Sijbrandij, Miranda Olff, "Trauma occurs in social contexts" , 21.2 (2016), 1-3, (p.2).
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Bibliography
Gusnita, Dhini "Naivety as the paradox and irony of war in three war poems: douglas dunn’s
after the war, louis johnson’s bread and pension and wh auden’s refugee blues", E-
Journal English Language and Literature 1.3 (2013), 34-42
Kathryn Magruder and others "Prevention and public health approaches to trauma and traumatic
stress: A rationale and a call to action." European journal of psychotraumatology 7.1
(2016), 1-9
Knaevelsrud, Christine, Nadine Stammel, Miranda Olff, "Traumatized refugees: identifying
needs and facing challenges for mental health care", European Journal of
Psychotraumatology, 12.1 (2017), 1-3
Labang, Oscar "Narrative of Distance And Exilic Melancholia in WH Auden’s “Refugee
Blues”.", Journal of the Association for Anglo-American Studies 11.2 (2014), 55-77
Sigona, Nando "Everyday statelessness in Italy: Status, rights, and camps." Ethnic and Racial
Studies 39.2 (2016): 263-279.
Sijbrandij, Marit, Miranda Olff, "Trauma occurs in social contexts" , 21.2 (2016), 1-3
Turner, Stuart "Refugee blues: A UK and European perspective", European Journal of
Psychotraumatology 6.1 (2015), 1-9
Zahoor, Asma "WH Auden’s Poem “Say the City Has Ten Million Souls: A Discourse of
Displacement." Journal of the Association for Anglo-American Studies 3.5 (2016), 141-
148
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