It's No Use Raising a Shout
It's No Use Raising a Shout - meaning Summary
Stalled Domestic Existential Questioning
Auden's poem presents a weary, conversational speaker trapped in banal domestic routines and stalled desires. Repeated questions about meaning and action return like a refrain, undercutting gestures of comfort and small tasks. Memories of failed departures, severed command, and lost intimacies accumulate without resolution, producing a resigned tone. The poem maps quiet disillusionment: presence and company are affirmed, yet they fail to yield purpose or consolation.
Read Complete AnalysesIt's no use raising a shout. No, Honey, you can cut that right out. I don't want any more hugs; Make me some fresh tea, fetch me some rugs. Here am I, here are you:But what does it mean? What are we going to do? A long time ago I told my mother I was leaving home to find another: I never answered her letter But I never found a better. Here am I, here are you: But what does it mean? What are we going to do? It wasn't always like this? Perhaps it wasn't, but it is. Put the car away; when life fails, What's the good of going to Wales? Here am I, here are you: But what does it mean? What are we going to do? In my spine there was a base; And I knew the general's face: But they've severed all the wires, And I can't tell what the general desires. Here am I, here are you: But what does it mean? What are we going to do? In my veins there is a wish, And a memory of fish: When I lie crying on the floor, It says, 'You've often done this before.' Here am I, here are you: But what does it mean? What are we going to do? A bird used to visit this shore: It isn't going to come anymore. I've come a long way to prove No land, no water, and no love. Here am I, here are you: But what does it mean? What are we going to do?
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