O Where are you going by W H Auden: Poem and Detailed Analysis

Original Text

O where are you going? said reader to rider,
That valley is fatal when furnaces burn,
Yonder's the midden whose odors will madden,
That gap is the grave where the tall return.

O do you imagine, said fearer to farer,
That dusk will delay on your path to the pass,
Your diligent looking discover the lacking,
Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?

O what was that bird, said horror to hearer,
 Did you see that shape in the twisted trees?
 Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly,
The spot on your skin is a shocking disease?

 Out of this house‚ said rider to reader,
Yours never will" ‚ said farer to fearer,
They're looking for you ‚ said hearer to horror,
As he left them there, as he left them there.

            Born in York, England, in 1907 as the son of a physician father and a strict Anglican mother, Wystan Hugh Auden, grew up to be known as the Spiritual Physician of his generation. The post war fragmented sensibilities- its uncertainties, ambiguities, shallowness etc., found a brilliant spokesperson in him and his often cerebral, brutally honest, experimental, style of writing. Having been one of the Pink Poets, his communist inclination, evident in his early writings, met with disillusionment in the 1939 German-Soviet pact, leading to an abandonment of the ideology and an embracing of metaphysical and religious faith. His major works, the thematic concerns of which spread across politics, religion, morals, love and the essence of existence, are

·       Poems(1930)

·       The orators(1932)

·       The Dance of Death(1933)

·       The Shield of Achilles(1955)

·       City without Walls(1969)

·       Epistle to a Godson(1972)

·       Thank You, Fog(1974)

O. Where are You Going, being the closing poem of his second collection, The Orators(1932), is employed as a leave-taking poem. Written in the ballad form, the poem resembles, in its style, to the folk Ballad “The Cutty Wren”, which begins “Oh where are you going said Milder to Moulder.” Being one of his most famous experimental poems, this one is bestowed with multiple possibilities of interpretation, while at the level of manifest meaning, grabs the spine of the existential crisis of the post war, religiously disillusioned generation’s fear of an impending doom or death. At another level, the poem offers the doubting, pessimistic mind, practical wisdom in action and in living the moment. The poem, that appears to be a conversation between three pairs of people; in the light of the Freudian influences on W H Auden, escalates as the universal conversation between the superego, modeled by the Id and other external influences,  and the Ego, that tends to be instinctive. The poem ends by portraying the actualization of a happy life, one free of regrets, in the rationalization with Superego and abandonment of the unnecessary fears ingrained through ideologies that restrict the fulfillment of life.

 O where are you going? said reader to rider,
That valley is fatal when furnaces burn,
Yonder's the midden whose odors will madden,
That gap is the grave where the tall return

The first stanza presents before us a reader questioning a rider as to where he/she is going and warning him/her of the valley that lies in the path. The valley can be dangerous, even fatal. Over there, there is a heap of waste, the odours of which can leave one insane. That gap, there, is a grave, where the tall, those who stand tall by their choices, return. These lines can be interpreted as the moral dilemma at the criticisms hurled at Auden for his audacity to experiment with his choices in life, poetry or even sexuality. It is known that his homosexuality had been an important source of despair for him, as he made conscious attempts to change his sexual inclinations, through psychoanalysis and also through attempted relationships with women. The religious values that he gained from the influence of his strictly religious mother and the social stigma associated with homosexuality played a significant role in his developing a moral conflict about his own sexual orientation. Critics have also identified sexual connotations in the expressions like ‘gap’, ‘tall’, ‘midden’ and the ‘valley’ which becomes fatal ‘when furnaces burn’. The reader in this stanza, while can literally be read as Auden’s readers who scoff his experimental writing, at another level can be interpreted as any prescriptive critic bound by deeply ingrained ideologies of the constructed morals. While the reader is given a passive representation as someone who idly conforms to and prescribes his own shackles to others, the rider, who can be the poet or or any being, that possess an adventurous spirit and dares to ride, to experiment, becomes an idol of liberation.

O do you imagine,said fearer to farer,
That dusk will delay on your path to the pass,
Your diligent looking discover the lacking,
Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?

The second stanza introduces another pair, the fearer, who is wary of the consequences, skeptical of the chances of success and the farer, who is care free and living the moment. The fearer is exuding pessimism at the possibility of dusk/ death/ doom limiting the poet, the farer, before the accomplishment of the goal, which is quite far away. The fearer also attempts to instigate a thought that what if the end result of the ‘diligent looking’ is ‘The Lacking’, something not worthy enough. The poet creates an image of a grave in the last line, in the images of ‘granite’ and ‘grass’, implying that what if you lose your life in the vain pursuit of something unknown.

O what was that bird, said horror to hearer,
 Did you see that shape in the twisted trees?
 Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly,
The spot on your skin is a shocking disease?

The poet is creating an idea of the Hell that awaits Sinners, in these lines. Here, horror or the messengers of it among humans, is shown as instilling a fear of divine retribution in the poet, the hearer, the sinner for his deviation from what, according to the society and religion, is righteous and moral. The bird, the shape, in the twisted trees, approaching swiftly behind can be perused as implying at Satan, who would come to fetch the sinner’s soul and drag it into Hell. The mention of the spot on the skin as a shocking disease can also be perceived as a reference to the early belief about disease as a punishment from God.

Out of this house‚ said rider to reader,
Yours never will" ‚ said farer to fearer,
They're looking for you ‚ said hearer to horror,
As he left them there, as he left them there.

After having patiently listened to the advices and prescriptions from the reader, fearer and horror, which are three aspects of his Super ego, the last stanza is the poet’s reply to them all. To the reader, to his/her prescriptive criticism, the rider in the poet or any other liberal spirit is answering “Out of this house”. This can be read as both an answer to the question “O where are you going” and a statement. When read as the answer to the question, the poet is telling that he is going out o the confines of this house and experience life. When looked at as the statement, it is an advice back to the reader to stop being passive and widen his/her vistas of understanding.

To the fearer, who hesitates to travel beyond his/her limits, worried about an impending doom or death before achievement, the poet humorously says “Yours never will”. The poet here implies ironically that sitting in your comfort zones as slaves is not going to save one from death, instead will only waste the life one has.

To the horror, worried about divine retribution and Hell, the poet, the sinner, says “They are looking for you”. The poet reminds the horror, that the horrors of hell visits the lives of those who live by the fear of it in afterlife, curbing their instincts and emotions, like a disease. Beautifully written in ballad stanzas, in a seemingly impersonal tone, the poem is a call for liberation from the shackles of morality, righteousness etc dictated by the religion, which, for his generation was already shaken by the blows of the late nineteenth and early twentieth Century turn of events.