Compare and contrast Auden’s and Faulks’ use of detail establish a feeling of alienation in ‘Refugee Blues’ and ‘The Last Night’

Both Sebastian Faulks and W. H. Auden write about the tales of Jewish refugees living in the time of holocaust during WW2 in their two pieces, ‘The Last Night’ and ‘Refugee Blues’. By using literary techniques such as imagery and tone both writers, Auden and Gray create a sense of alienation for the characters portrayed in their writing. Both Auden and Gray create a sincere illusion of reality to promote the refugee’s alienation and suffering in both stories ultimately bringing the two gripping tales to life.
Both Auden and Faulks use imagery as an extremely strong literary device to create alienation towards …show more content…

That pain and sorrow will be felt and loneliness endured by all the children going to the concentration camp. Additionally, in the second paragraph of Faulk’s text he speaks of a woman handing out food and people having “food for the journey”. This can be deduced by the reader as another use of foreshadowing. It was believed that Adolf Hitler was of the Christian religion. This scene of people eating food before the tragic events that ensue are similar and almost mirror that of the last supper, the Christian fable that exists in the bible where Jesus was last before he was crucified and sent to his imminent death. It is seen as the ultimate betrayal in the bible when Judas sold out Jesus to the Romans for thirty silver coins. The connection between the two estranged events though shows that, just like Jesus, the ignorant children are completely unaware of the fact the food being handed out represents to the reader that the end is near as did the last supper for Jesus. This could be seen as the Faulk’s demonstration of Hitler’s somewhat extreme impiety displaying him as Judas even though Hitler was of Christian religion. In ‘Refugee Blues’ Auden writes in his first paragraph “Yet there’s no place for us, my dear, yet there’s no place for us.” Auden exploits the predicament of the refugees to demonstrate that they are completely alone and segregated from society and they are regarded as substandard