Refugee Blues

Positive Image| Negative Image| Effect| Some are living in mansions| Some are living in holes| This shows that while some people are very well off, others, like the refugees, have nowhere decent to live. | Evert spring it blossoms a new| Old passports cant do that| A tree can grow but a passport cant| Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin| But they weren’t German Jews my dear| Saying how pets get more luxuries then them| Saw fish swimming as if they were free| Only ten feet away | The fish have more freedom then them|
Use of language| Example| Effect| Use of repetition| We cannot go there now, my dear, my dear cannot go there now. (“my dear” repeated in each stanza)| Emphasize how bad there situation is| Language conveying sadness or despair| Asked me politely to return next year, But where shall we go to-day my dear, where shall we go to-day? Makes us feel sympathetic to them | Language about the political situation and the behaviour of the officials| The consul banged the table and said: “if you’ve got no passport you’re officially dead”| The consul sounds cruel because he’s basically saying they are dead even though they are alive| Language about homelessness| Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors, a thousand floors; a thousand windows and a thousand doors; and not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours. Makes it sound like they are surrounded by so much shelter but they are not allowed in any of them| Language about war| Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro. Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me| Ten thousand soldiers are looking for two people- All the soldiers are looking for the Jews| | | | | | | Refugee blues– blues music
Ten million souls (religious, holy, implies we are all the same) Society is unfair on the way it treats people (some are living in mansions, some are living in holes) Atlas – there not anywhere close to there home, Palestine or Germany The natural world is in a continual state of renewal, they lost their passports and are no longer citizens They are told to wait and then come again next year – uncaring He compares the angry speeches by Hitler to he thunder in the sky The poodle and cat are treated better then the German views (they cant give the same care to their fellow human beings) Pathetic fallacy- the weather matches the mood of the poem (the snow) Refugee blues is very relevant today, the refugees in England DEJECTED – you’ve given up on life rejection and despair (dispirited, disheartened, poignant, depressing, Foreboding, mournful, despair, bitterness, resentment, anger)