Analysis
Poetry “After Auschwitz” By Anne Sexton
After Auschwitz
Anger,
as black as a hook,
overtakes me.
Each day,
each Nazi
took, at 8: 00 A.M., a baby
and sauteed him for breakfast
in his frying pan.
And death looks on with a casual eye
and picks at the dirt under his fingernail.
Man is evil,
I say aloud.
Man is a flower
that should be burnt,
I say aloud.
Man
is a bird full of mud,
I say aloud.
And death looks on with a casual eye
and scratches his anus.
Man with his small pink toes,
with his miraculous fingers
is not a temple
but an outhouse,
I say aloud.
Let man never again raise his teacup.
Let man never again write a book.
Let man never again put on his shoe.
Let man never again raise his eyes,
on a soft July night.
Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.
I say those things aloud.
I beg the Lord not to hear.
as black as a hook,
overtakes me.
Each day,
each Nazi
took, at 8: 00 A.M., a baby
and sauteed him for breakfast
in his frying pan.
And death looks on with a casual eye
and picks at the dirt under his fingernail.
Man is evil,
I say aloud.
Man is a flower
that should be burnt,
I say aloud.
Man
is a bird full of mud,
I say aloud.
And death looks on with a casual eye
and scratches his anus.
Man with his small pink toes,
with his miraculous fingers
is not a temple
but an outhouse,
I say aloud.
Let man never again raise his teacup.
Let man never again write a book.
Let man never again put on his shoe.
Let man never again raise his eyes,
on a soft July night.
Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.
I say those things aloud.
I beg the Lord not to hear.
After Auschwitz is poetry that was written by Anne Sexton. She was born
in Newton, Massachusetts in 1928 and she was known for her frank treatment of
intimate and taboo subjects. After
Auschwitz tells about the abattoir by Nazi that had done in Auschwitz. The
setting of this poetry is in Auschwitz Poland that is the largest and most
famous Nazi concentration camp in World War II. As Nazi forces conquered many
of the countries of Europe during World War II (1939-1945), millions of Jews
were rounded up and slaughtered outright or imprisoned in concentration camps,
where they were killed or died from starvation and disease. By the end of the
war, After Auschwitz, between 5.6
million and 5.9 million Jewish men, women, and children had died at the hands
of the Nazis.
The speaker in this Sexton’s poetry
is the victim of Nazi’s abattoir. The speaker is tortured and suffers during
Nazi attitude toward Jews. She shows her anger toward the destruction caused by
the Nazis in the World War II to the action of mankind in general.
The dominant tone in After Auschwitz is angry. It can be seen
from the beginning of this poetry, “Anger,”
The first line just consist of one word. It indicates the stress in the
word, the emotion of the speaker and shows that she really mad. The way she say
“Anger” and the following line “Each
day, / each Nazi” that is also consist of short and hard sentences, just like
she spits them out. It is like she spits something disgusting or gross. The
speaker conveys that what the Nazis done was totally horrible treatment of
humankind. The speaker start compare what the Nazis done with something gross
like in the third stanza “Man/ is a bird full of mud,”. Another sentence in the
fourth stanza also shows the speaker’s abhorrence to the Nazis “and scratches
his anus.” In the fifth stanza, the tone becomes angrier and darker. “Never.
Never. Never. Never. Never.” In the last stanza the tone drastically change to
the sad tone, “I beg the Lord not hear .”
Angrier
and darker
Angry sadness
This poetry categorizes as dramatic
monologue. The speaker tells the contents of this poetry by showing her opinion
and feeling directly and explicitly to the reader. In general, the speaker
tells about the holocaust that had done by the Nazis toward Jews in the
concentration camp in Auschwitz. The slaughtered done like it just common thing
that happened every day. The Nazis subjected the Jews like the livestock. The
speaker becomes disgusted and starts
scorn man in general.
In the first stanza, the speaker
says “Each day,/ each Nazi/ took, at 8:00 A., a baby/ and
sauteed him for breakfast/ in his frying pan.”. The reader must feel disturbing with this sentence.
How come sautéed baby as a meal for breakfast? Where is their humanism? The
speaker in this sentence shows how the Nazis subjected the Jews as the
livestock that can be slaughtered anytime they want as pigs, lambs or cows that
become their food.
The following
stanza shows that this horrible treatment just like it was the common thing
that happened. The others man who knew this holocaust did not do anything at
all. They just stand and allow that happen in front of their eyes. In the
speaker’s point of view, it categorizes as the wrong measure. It can be seen in
the sentence ““And death looks on with a
casual eye/ and picks at the dirt under his fingernail”. When they just
keep silent, it means that they agree in Nazi’s abattoir and allow the
following horrible treatment happens.
In
the third stanza, the speaker begins to show her repugnance to the abattoirs in
Auschwitz. She starts compare them with the disgusting thing and bad thing.
“Man is evil”, shows the negative meaning of man that has deed like evil. “ Man
is a flower/ that should be burnt, “ point out that actually they are looked
good or beautiful in the outside. Because they had done such horrible thing,
they should get bad treatment too. Many of victims killed in Auschwitz and
other extermination camps suffered death in the gas chambers and had their
bodies cremated, the speaker choose the reference to man deserving to be burnt.
The last sentence shows how the speaker sees man as disgusting thing. “Man / is
a bird full of mud,” mud refers to something gross and the speaker compare it
with the man.
The
next stanza, “And death looks on with a casual eye/ and scratches his anus”,
has almost same meaning with the second stanzas. The speaker indicates that the
slaughtering happened often in the concentration camp and “death” does his job
everyday and makes him bored. So he just sit and see who will be the next
victim while scratch his ass.
In
the fifth stanza, the speaker says that they “man in general” wants to be
associated with something that is great and wonderful, but their actions make
them associated with something disgusting, smelly and dirty. “Man with his
small pink toes,/ with his miraculous fingers/ is not a temple/ but an
outhouse.” They do nothing whereas see their brother was slaughtered. “Let man never again raise his eyes,/
on a soft July night./ Never. Never. Never. Never. Never.” By saying those
sentence, the speaker want us not to allow that Holocaust happen in the future.
That is the bad story that happen in the world history and nobody wants to
remember it.
In
the last line “I beg the Lord not hear that”, the speaker maybe does not want
the Lord, the one who create human, to hear what she said because in this
poetry she much saying shame on man for their silence toward the holocaust that
happen around them.
This
poetry includes in free verse because it does not follow predictable form or
rhyme scheme or metric pattern.
The
speaker in this poetry use imagery to make the audience feel angry and show how
the speaker’s anger is getting bigger and reach the pinnacle in the fifth
stanza “Let man never again raise his cup/ Let man never again write a book/
Let man never again put on his shoes/ Let man never again raise his eyes. She
imagines this man sitting on a table or in a chair and drinking a tea and doing
nothing while somewhere else humans are tortured and die in concentration
camps. The other example of the imagery showed in the second stanza “And death
looks on with a casual eye/ and picks at the dirt under his fingernail” and
fifth stanza “And death looks on with a casual eye, and scratches his anus” The
speaker imagines the death as a person. She imagines the death being somewhere
in the concentration camp, simply standing there bored by the same things that
happen every day, scratching his ass and waiting for the next person who dies.
The writer of this poetry was known
for her frank treatment of intimate and taboo subjects. We can
see her choice of word in the poetry such as “anus” in the “And death looks on with
a casual eye/ and scratches his anus. In the second line” as black
as a hook” “hook” was chosen because her
anger is become sharp and it combines with the “ black” which indicate that her
anger is getting bigger. ” She chose
“sauteed” in “and sauteed him for breakfast” to make the reader feel the
disturbing feeling how the Nazis’ brutality toward children in the
concentration camp. In the fifth stanza “temple” use to represents the purity
or great.
We can find metaphor and personification in this poetry.
“Man is evil”, “Man is a flower/that should be burnt”, “Man/ is a bird full of
mud” are the sentence that use metaphor. In that sentences, the writer does not
use “like” but use “is” to indicate that man in that sentences are really
“evil” “flower that should be burn” and “bird full of mud”. “Man is a
flower/that should be burnt” can be indicated as paradox because it shows
contradiction that flower which is beautiful and should be kept instead should
be burnt.
This poetry is constructed in couplets. The first four
stanza has similar structure (8,2,8,2). The first stanza show what the Nazis
done, the second stanza show the effect of what the Nazis done that is so much
people die. The third stanza shows how human just stand without doing anything
toward what had happen in the first stanza. The fifth stanza has similar
meaning with the second stanza. The speaker in the last stanza shows her hope
in the future that something horrible in the first stanza and third stanza
should not be happened again.
After Auschwitz shows
the audience on the worst world history and genocide that had happened in the
World War II and the speaker expect that it will never happen again the future
because the abattoir was really brutal.
