A Job for Mcguinness
A Job for Mcguinness - meaning Summary
Unemployment Turned to Warfare
The poem follows McGuinness, an unemployed man whose wife can find work while he cannot. The speaker suggests the only opportunity awaiting him is wartime service, when a perceived foreign threat will create demand for men to fight. The poem links economic insecurity to martial opportunity and uses contemporary racist language to portray the imagined enemy, implying irony about readiness for violence as a last resort for employment.
Read Complete AnalysesOh, it's dreadful to think in a country like this With its chances for work; and enjoyment That a man like McGuinness was certain to miss Whenever he tried for employment. He wrote to employers from Bondi to Bourke, From Woolloomooloo to Glen Innes, But he found; though his wife could get plenty of work; There was never a job for McGuinness. But perhaps; later on; when the Chow and the Jap Begin to drift down from the tropics, When a big yellow stain spreading over the map Provides some disquieting topics, Oh, it's then when they're wanting a man that will stand In the trench where his own kith and kin is, With a frown on his face and a gun in his hand; Then there might be a job for McGuinness!
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