Musée des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden

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Recommended: The concept of suffering

Suffering is embedded in our daily lives. There are devastating things going on in our daily environments and yet, people seldom realize this as they occupy themselves with other tasks. W.H. Auden’s, Musée des Beaux Arts, is a statement on human perceptions and how we use them to observe, or block out human suffering. While we are doing ordinary things like eating, or opening a window, bad things can be happening to others and it is as easy as looking up, to see what is actually going on. Auden illustrates societies’ indifference to human suffering through the form of his poem and by alluding to artwork that compares human perceptions and juxtaposes ordinary images with images of suffering and tragedy.
The form of Musée des Beaux Arts plays an influential role in the way the poem’s content is conveyed. Auden’s poem appears to be divided into two separate parts. The first thirteen lines provide the reader with a general overview or introduction to humanities indifference to suffering. The second half, alluding to a Peter Breughel painting, provides an example of this indifference. A possible explanation as to why Auden may have separated the poem in this manner could be to first, make people stop and acknowledge humanities tendency to be indifferent to suffering. People are often so consumed with their own situations that they are ignorant to the indifference they are demonstrating. Once Auden has the reader thinking about the poem’s theme being a realistic image of the modern world he further extrapolates on this idea in the second half by providing an example of arts relationship to suffering. Without breaking the poem into sections people might remain indifferent to the point Auden is trying to make like they might miss Icarus’...

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...tention in the world, and the subjectivity of human suffering. Auden emphasizes that the reality of modern humanity is that people have learnt to be indifferent to the pain of other’s, like the ploughman and the ship attendants or uninformed like the children skating on the pond. Ultimately, Auden reminds us that tragedies and human suffering are a part of life; they can happen anywhere at anytime but when they do, life continues to go on.

Works Cited

Shmoop Editorial Team. "Musée Des Beaux Arts Theme of Choices." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. .
"W. H. Auden: Poems Summary and Analysis." W. H. Auden: Poems Study Guide: Summary and Analysis of "Musée Des Beaux Arts" N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Mar. 2014. .

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