What is the significance of scenes and place in Auden’s 1st September 1939
What is the significance of scenes and place in Auden’s 1st September 1939
The places and scenes in a poem or novel or any story, can hold great significance for what the author or poet is trying to convey in the piece. It can refer to an exact place at an exact time or can draw memories from the reader that they may not consciously know. Evoking and emotional response both times none the less.
1st September 1939 was the day WWII started and is a historical date for this very reason; it is also the day in which this poem is set. It is set In a dive in New York City, a run down bar that is not the most appealing of places and tracks the thoughts of Auden who is sat in there alone writing this poem.
The significance of the dive is that, Auden, being a British man seems to have fled from England and the recruitment and obligation to join one of the many fields of the military services that his homeland would have expected him to fulfill. The dive represents the dark and emotionally unstable corners of Auden’s mind and the guilt that he bears for making this decision. The dive is just a small part of Auden’s mind; the world is a representation of his whole mind.
The safety of the City he is now a resident doesn’t seem to be enough for Auden and his conscious. He feels his location is a cage of guilt that he has been trapped in. “Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man,” The skyscrapers that Auden mentions make Auden feel small and insignificant. They bear on top of him looking down, as if they are the collective man looking down at his decision to flee from his homeland of Britain to the safety of their streets.
The underlying fear off death is conveyed in the poem. “The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.” Auden is showing that even in his new home the smell of death follows him, on this one particular September night sat drinking in a dive of a bar.
“On Fifty-second
The places and scenes in a poem or novel or any story, can hold great significance for what the author or poet is trying to convey in the piece. It can refer to an exact place at an exact time or can draw memories from the reader that they may not consciously know. Evoking and emotional response both times none the less.
1st September 1939 was the day WWII started and is a historical date for this very reason; it is also the day in which this poem is set. It is set In a dive in New York City, a run down bar that is not the most appealing of places and tracks the thoughts of Auden who is sat in there alone writing this poem.
The significance of the dive is that, Auden, being a British man seems to have fled from England and the recruitment and obligation to join one of the many fields of the military services that his homeland would have expected him to fulfill. The dive represents the dark and emotionally unstable corners of Auden’s mind and the guilt that he bears for making this decision. The dive is just a small part of Auden’s mind; the world is a representation of his whole mind.
The safety of the City he is now a resident doesn’t seem to be enough for Auden and his conscious. He feels his location is a cage of guilt that he has been trapped in. “Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man,” The skyscrapers that Auden mentions make Auden feel small and insignificant. They bear on top of him looking down, as if they are the collective man looking down at his decision to flee from his homeland of Britain to the safety of their streets.
The underlying fear off death is conveyed in the poem. “The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night.” Auden is showing that even in his new home the smell of death follows him, on this one particular September night sat drinking in a dive of a bar.
“On Fifty-second