Question

The speaker in the poem says that for the ploughman in Breughel’s painting, Icarus’s fall "was not an important failure" (line 17). What does this suggest about the Auden's view of how people respond to the suffering of others?

Answer 1

Auden views that people must never become too busy to help others in their hour of need.

Step-by-step explanation:

Breughel's painting of the fall of Icarus shows the ploughman unaware of Icarus's fall into the sea. Moreover, he did not seem to care much about the other person's suffering.

This is also rightly mentioned in the poem Musee des Beaux Arts by W. H. Auden. And about the fall of Icarus, he wrote that it "was not an important failure", even though he may "Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry". This shows that for Auden, the ignorance of people in helping others in their distress is not how one should respond to others' suffering. Instead, he wishes that one must never be too busy to help others in their distress.