Refugee Blues

Question 1

Style

Answer 1

• Ballad - musical

- Repetition of “no place” at end of lines of stanzas

Question 2

Refugees

Answer 2

• Speaker remarks that he feels unwelcome in the city he finds himself in
• Rejected from home country due to persecution. Unable to renew passports because they are seen as undesirable and are forced to leave homes

Question 3

Refugee Life

Answer 3

• Turned away from every aspect of life
• Animals have better treatment than them
• Creates further sense of displacement

Question 4

Freedom

Answer 4

• Contrasts to swimming fish who he is so close to physically but conceptually very far away from
• Reflects on how cruel humans can be to one another as even animals live freer lives than refugees
• No place for them in empty buildings - injustice
• Irony in the sense that the only people that want them are out to kill them - soldiers
• Challenges readers to understand and sympathise with the plight of refugees.