Analysis of Audens The Age of Anxiety :: Auden The Age of Anxiety Essays

Analysis of Audens The mount up of AnxietyIn Audens lengthy poem, The mount of Anxiety, he follows the actions and thoughts of four characters who happen to relate in a bar duringa war. Their interactions with one another execute them on an imaginary questin their minds in which they attempt, without success, to discoverthemselves. The themes and ideas that Audens The Age of Anxiety conveysreflect his belief that mans quest for self-actualization is in vain. W. H. Auden was born in York, England, in 1907, the third andyoungest son of Constance and George Auden (Magill 72). His poetry in the1930s reflected the world of his era, a world of depression, Fascism, andwar. His works adopt a prose of a clinical diagrostician sicanatomizing confederacy and interpret social and spiritual acts as failures ofcommunication (Magill 74). They also shed forth a diagnosis of theindustrial English society among scotch and moral decay in the 1930s(Magill 72). Conflicts common in his works be th ose between war and peace,corruption of modern society, and the dichotomy between the deep and thepoor (Barrows 317). The Age of Anxiety is, in general, a quest poem. irrelevant theideal quest, however, this quest accomplishes nothing. The characterssearch for the kernel of self and, in essence, the meaning of life, butbecause their search is triggered by intoxication due to alchohol, thequest is blessed from the start. Throughout the quest, the charactersbelieve themselves to be in a form of Purgatory when they ar allegoricallyin Hell. They fail to realize this due to the modern forgiving conditionwhich denies possibility but refuses to call it impossible (Nelson 117). In The Age of Anxiety, there are four characters of significance.Quant, the first to be introduced, addresses himself in a mirror, an actiontypical to a drunken man. He is an develop homosexual widower who findsrefuge in the mirror because it offers him the easiest way of face uphimself (Nelson 117-118). Mali n, the most dominant character overall, is a medicalintelligence policeman on leave from the Canadian Air Force. His backgroundlabels him as the manque doctor and leader in the world of The Age ofAnxiety. His describe is reminiscent, in relation to the war, of a malingerer,and the composition of his personality hints at the unworthy within him (Nelson118). Rosetta, the most human of the characters, is a department storebuyer, and comes close-set(prenominal) to self-actualization than any of the othercharacters in the poem. Emble is a young sailor and ambitious prince whose