Are You There?
Are You There? - meaning Summary
Aloneness and Projected Otherness
Auden considers how lovers imagine the difference between being with someone and being alone. Using images like Narcissus, a child, and the elderly, the poem shows contrasting attitudes: self-reflection, spontaneous unity with the world, and skeptical memory. These examples suggest that lovers try to claim anotherness as part of themselves. The final thought questions whether true solitude exists, proposing that desire or projection may make us never entirely alone.
Read Complete AnalysesEach lover has some theory of his own About the difference between the ache Of being with his love, and being alone: Why what, when dreaming, is dear flesh and bone That really stirs the senses, when awake, Appears a simulacrum of his own. Narcissus disbelieves in the unknown; He cannot join his image in the lake So long as he assumes he is alone. The child, the waterfall, the fire, the stone, Are always up to mischief, though, and take The universe for granted as their own. The elderly, like Proust, are always prone To think of love as a subjective fake; The more they love, the more they feel alone. Whatever view we hold, it must be shown Why every lover has a wish to make Some kind of otherness his own: Perhaps, in fact, we never are alone.
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