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Year 11 Multimodal Assessment Speech on Auden....

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English Assessment Task 2 speech Transcript How often do we think about 15-year-old Hodan Yasin, a Somali refugee on Nauru island who attempted to set herself alight? The traumatic abuse of the vulnerable, the violation of their human rights is to us just 30 second news reports. We peer through the glass screens of our TVs, try to distance ourselves from this broken world. Yet it is our apathy that has failed to hold our own government accountable. And the result? Exactly what Auden envisioned on Sept 1 st, 1939. In Refugee Blues and September 1 1939, Auden’s revival of the poignant poetic voice provokes a societal self-examination and realisation of the stark and ultimately destructive reality of society’s apathy- revealing the hypocrisy of western society’s ‘folded lie’- its claim to moral superiority. Auden actively galvanises his audience to readdress their apathy. In Refugee blues Auden highlights the dichotomy between society's marginalisation and repression opposed to the accepted paradigm of western society's moral superiority. Auden critiques the hypocrisy of society’s apathy through a distinctly modernist lens which draws attention to the fragmented and bureaucratised nature of society, morally bankrupt and deaf to the plight of the vulnerable. This juxtaposition is highlighted as Auden polarises it with his emotionally charged adaptation of Blues musical form, which reveals the depth of human emotion and seeks to inspire his audience to critically empathise. Auden maintains the despondent tone of the narrator throughout the poem in his use of rhyming couplets, “Say this city has ten million souls/……some are living in holes”. The continuation of these rhyming couplets despite the narrator’s journey to find refuge, their situation remains stagnant, revealing that western society’s pretensions to cultural grandeur remain empty in the face of the persecution of the Jews. I have captured this abject sense of despair in the monochromatic palette of my poster. Auden’s use of poignant visual images throughout also provokes meaningful reflection of its audience as it intimately portrays the suffering of the refugees, appealing to a personal empathy lost in the modernity of society. This is reflected the use of symbolism, “the village churchyard there grows an old yew/ Every spring it blossoms anew” which I have alluded to in my poster. The cyclical nature of rejuvenation and renewal of the yew tree contrasts to the lack of renewal and stagnation the refugees face. The irony is that the church which is traditionally associated as a place of solace only succeeds in heightening their despair. Auden’s cyclical use of the motif of the unattainable dream, is echoed in the first stanza and the last stanza and reflects the sheer futility of the refugees’ journey, the dream of belonging ultimately rejected. In my poster I have visually represented the vivid imagery of the line, with the doors placed in a harsh, craggy setting, an embodiment of the moral wasteland that Auden envisaged. Auden’s voice in September 1, 1939 assumes a form of urgency and visionary counsel, presaging the cyclical and destructive culmination of society’s apathy foreshadowed in Refugee Blues, “Hitler over Europe” and elucidating the public’s personal re-engagement as the final solution. Auden criticises the debilitating fear that has arisen out of the trauma of WW1 and has guided the noninterventionist policies in response to Hitler- a manifestation of Western society’s attitude of apathy in the political sphere. Auden emphasises the flawed nature of their apathy through emphasising the perverse and “dishonest” normality of day-to-day life. The lexical chain of “offends” and “September night” trivialises the conflict, conveying it merely as an inconvenience to everyday to everyday life and suggests America’s apathy towards international conflict. Auden hence exposes society’s apathy as stemming from fear through the metaphor “children afraid of the night” as society’s aversion to “the night”, symbolic of political conflict and uncertainty has rendered it’s citizens to become passive and vulnerable have visually represented this through identical images of the surrealistic childlike figures, whose fear of the “haunted wood” has blinded them. . Reeling from the trauma of WW1, the public refuses to engage with the public issues of Hitler and the war, with a void of intellectual debate and lack of opposition, the impersonal politics of dictators ultimately ends in the calamity and the

destruction of society. The overlay of the cracked window on my poster reflects the way in which the public has estranged themselves from their broken world, like observers at a window. However, the cracked nature of the window, embodies Auden’s endeavour to dismantle the “folded lie”. Auden compels his readers to re-evaluate their apathy by presenting the individual as a solution to society’s vulnerability through the person pronoun “I” in “All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie”; the contrast between his “voice” and unmentionable death also implies that society’s wilful ignorance and apathy can only be challenged by individuals who actively seek change. Ultimately, Auden galvanises readers using the balanced sentence, “We must love one another or die”. The statement’s echoes proverbial wisdom, and utilises biblical allusion from the New Testament, which rewrites the Christian code as a statement of survival. Unlike in Refugee Blues, where the Church only succeeds in further segregating and marginalising individuals, the Christian code here is the catalyst for a unification of the global community and offers a moral ultimatum. To conclude, Auden’s prophetic voice reveals the cataclysmic impact of society’s apathy, both personally, in Refugee Blues and politically in September 1, 1939 and wills his audience to keenly engage with political and social realities. It is clear that Auden’s message remains ever the more relevant....