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Isn't the theme of 'Refugee Blues' just refugees?
Refugees are the subject. A theme is the idea the poem explores through that subject. What ideas can you find?
Losing your home. Being turned away by officials. Being blamed by crowds.
Good. Those are themes. Can you add one that is not about suffering?
The bond between the two speakers. They have each other.
Yes, and that bond is what keeps the poem human, not just political.
The poem names Hitler, so is it only about Jewish refugees in 1939?
It begins there, but notice what it does not name. No country, no city and no names for the two speakers.
So the couple could be anyone.
Exactly. A modern refugee would also meet offices that delay, speeches that blame and borders that close.
Then the poem is both a record and a warning.
Say that sentence in an exam answer and you will earn a mark.
Let us write on identity. What is our Point?
In the modern state a person's identity depends on documents.
Good. Now the Evidence. Which stanza will you use?
Stanza 4, where the consul treats a couple without a passport as if they no longer exist.
And the Explain step?
Two living people are erased by a rule, so the stanza shows how fragile legal identity is, and the speaker's insistence that they are alive matters.
That is a complete paragraph. Notice that no line has been copied.
the pair lose house, country and the protection of any state (stanzas 1-3 and 11).
a lapsed passport and a consul's ruling show a person reduced to a document (stanzas 3-4).
polite offices refuse help without any open cruelty, a charge aimed at the democracies (stanzas 4-5).
scapegoating at a rally grows into the threat of Hitler and the hunt by soldiers (stanzas 6, 7 and 12).
a pet, fish and birds enjoy what the refugees are denied (stanzas 8-10).
the tender address to a companion gives the poem a human centre, and the unnamed place and people let it speak for refugees of any age.
Theme of identity (Point, Evidence, Explain): the poem shows that in the modern state identity depends on paperwork; in stanza 4 the consul treats a couple without a passport as if they no longer existed; two living people are erased by a rule, which shows how fragile legal identity is and why the speaker's insistence that they are alive matters.
Theme of bureaucratic indifference (Point, Evidence, Explain): the poem shows that cruelty can be polite; in stanza 5 a committee offers the speaker a chair but asks him to return after a year; the courtesy hides a refusal, because a year means nothing to an office but everything to people in danger.
Theme of human cruelty and natural freedom (Point, Evidence, Explain): the poem shows that the refugees' suffering is man-made; in stanza 9 fish swim freely a short distance from the couple at the harbour; the nearness of the water makes the freedom seem cruelly close and shows that the barrier is human rules.
No home, no pass, no proof of name; a polite no, then public blame; the thunder's threat, the soldiers' chase; the beasts go free, the pair no space; and still they have each other's hand, the one warm thing in all the land.
A traveller loses her home, then her papers, then her name on the register. Officials smile and send her away. Crowds mutter that she is a danger. Outside the town she watches a pet, fish and birds enjoying what she cannot, and at night she dreams of soldiers. Through it all she holds one hand, and that is the only reason she goes on.
Some Brave People Protest Against Lovelessness - Statelessness, Bureaucracy, Prejudice, Persecution, Animals (irony of freedom), Love.
T.H.E.M.E.S. - Territory lost (statelessness), Heartless procedure (bureaucracy), Enmity of the crowd (prejudice), Menace of the regime (persecution), Envy of the animals (irony), Solidarity of the pair (love).
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Which theme do stanzas 4 and 5 develop?
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What does stanza 6 show?
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What is the difference between subject and theme?
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What do stanzas 8 to 10 suggest about human society?
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How does the theme of love appear?
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Why is the poem called universal?
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The central idea or message that a work explores, as distinct from its subject.
The condition of having no country that recognises you as a citizen and so no state bound to protect you.
A system of rules, offices and officials, which can become slow and impersonal.
Fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers.
Unfairly blaming a person or group for the problems of others.
Treating people as less than human, for instance as a problem or a category rather than as individuals.
The feeling of being cut off from the society, place or people around you.
Support and loyalty between people who share a hardship.
The central themes of 'Refugee Blues' are statelessness and the loss of identity, the cruelty of bureaucracy, prejudice and persecution, the bitter comparison between human and animal freedom, and the human bond that survives. This lesson explains each theme, shows where it appears in the poem and teaches you how to write about it.
A theme is a poem's larger idea, and 'Refugee Blues' carries several. It shows how losing home and papers can strip a person of identity; how a system of polite offices can refuse help without anyone being openly cruel; how fear of strangers turns into scapegoating; how persecution closes in until the speaker sees soldiers in his dreams; and how pets, fish and birds seem better off than the refugees. Running through all of these is a tender bond between the speaker and his companion, and the poem's refusal to name a place or a person gives all its themes a reach far beyond the year 1939.
The subject of a poem is what it is about, and its theme is the larger idea it explores through that subject. The subject of 'Refugee Blues' is one couple's search for refuge from Nazi persecution. Its themes are the bigger ideas that this search raises: loss of home and identity, the failure of institutions, prejudice, fear, and the contrast between human cruelty and natural freedom, together with the human closeness that survives all this.
The most basic theme is the loss of a place to belong. The speaker and his companion have lost a house, a country and the legal protection of any state. In stanza 1 the vast city with its many kinds of home underlines their lack. In stanza 2 their homeland is shown on a map but closed to them. In stanza 11 the dream of an immense building with endless doors extends the theme to the whole world. Statelessness means that no government is responsible for them, which makes them defenceless. The poem presents homelessness not as bad luck but as a political condition created by laws.
In the modern state a person's identity is granted by documents. The passports that lapse in stanza 3 and the consul's ruling in stanza 4 show a person reduced to a piece of paper: official existence depends on the paper, not on the living human being. The speaker's reply that the pair are still alive asserts a human identity that no paper can give or take away. Auden knew the subject at first hand, having married Erika Mann in 1935 to give her a British passport.
The consul is brusque, the committee is courteous, and neither helps. The theme is that cruelty does not need cruel people: a system of rules, delays and procedures can ruin lives while every official stays correct. The year's delay in stanza 5 shows how the clock of an institution differs from the clock of an emergency. The theme also carries a charge against the democracies, whose officials were turning refugees away, and not against the Nazis alone.
At the rally in stanza 6 a speaker blames refugees for threatening the community's livelihood. The theme is xenophobia, the fear of the stranger, which grows in times of economic worry and turns into hatred. When the couple realise they are the subject of the speech, we see dehumanisation: a group of suffering people is treated as a problem to be managed. Stanza 8 shows prejudice in a quieter way, since hospitality is open to a pet but not to the persecuted.
Stanza 7 names Hitler, the dream of stanza 11 shows anxiety entering sleep, and stanza 12 shows soldiers hunting the pair. The theme is the threat to life that lies behind the whole poem: the refugees are not merely uncomfortable, they are hunted. The movement from thunder, which is distant and impersonal, to soldiers, who are close and specific, shows the fear growing.
A pampered pet, fish and birds enjoy a welcome, free movement and peace, three things the refugees are denied. The theme is that the cause of their suffering is man-made, a matter of rules and politics, and not natural. The comparison also suggests a moral failure in a society that cares for animals but shuts out people.
The one steady warmth in the poem is the speaker's tender address to his companion in the closing line of each stanza. Everyone else is hostile or indifferent, yet the pair still have each other, and the pronoun 'we' holds the poem together. This theme gives the poem a human centre, and it makes the ending more painful, because what the soldiers threaten to destroy is not only two lives but a bond.
Although the poem names Hitler, it names no country or city and gives neither of the two speakers a name. That lets it speak for refugees of any age. Modern refugees also meet visas, offices and hostile speeches. In recent years the UN refugee agency has counted well over a hundred million forcibly displaced people worldwide, so the poem's questions are still alive.
The poem builds an argument in order: first the pair lose their place (stanzas 1-3), then the system fails them (4-5), then society turns hostile (6), then a regime threatens them (7), then the contrast with animals reveals a moral failure (8-10), and the dream and the hunt show the cost (11-12). Love is the shelter that runs beneath the whole sequence.
Use the PEE method. Make a Point by stating the theme in a clear sentence. Give Evidence by naming the stanza and describing the image. Explain how that evidence develops the theme and what effect it has on the reader. Describe images in your own words, and in an examination add a short quotation from your textbook where it helps.