Although suffering is not very severe in modern America, it is a prominent presence in most other places. W. H. Auden's poem, “Musée des Beaux Arts,” acknowledges suffering in the world and demonstrates what people do to avoid suffering. The speaker makes numerous references to both modern life and historical examples. Although the esoteric meaning of the poem is difficult to decipher, the underlying message of the poem is that it is human nature to avoid unpleasant things, and human beings find various ways to avoid and lessen suffering instead of dealing with it directly. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The speaker sufficiently demonstrates that human beings try to avoid suffering. In the first two lines of the poem, he immediately references the “Old Masters,” or Renaissance painters, and how they fully understood suffering and depicted it in their works: “The old masters: how well they understood / His human position ; how it happens" (2). When the speaker says “It's the human position,” he means that Renaissance painters knew how suffering affected people; when the speaker says “how it happens,” he is stating that even Renaissance painters knew the reasons why suffering occurred. The speaker also alludes to Pieter Breughel's painting, The Fall of Icarus. Breughel was a Renaissance painter and The Fall of Icarus is one of Breughel's paintings that depicts the suffering of human beings: "In Brueghel's Icarus, for example: how everything moves away / Quietly from the disaster..." (16 ). In The Fall of Icarus, Breughel depicts the scene that references the Greek myth of Daedalus' escape from the island of Crete with his son Icarus, on wings made of wax and bird feathers. In the myth, Icarus foolishly flies too close to the sun and the wax melts. In the painting Icarus falls from the sky and into the water below; however the surrounding people choose to ignore his suffering and instead continue with their routine. The nearby plowman surely heard Icarus' splash or cry as he plunged into the water: "But to him it was no great failure" (18). The plowman ignores Icarus because he wants to distance himself from suffering rather than face it, even if that suffering is someone else's. Breughel's painting also shows a ship close to Icarus, but the ship's crew members choose to ignore Icarus because “they had somewhere to go and sailed calmly” (22). Like the farmer, the ship's crew members choose to ignore Icarus because they too want to escape suffering. In The Fall of Icarus, the focus of the work is Icarus, but he is not even shown fully: Breughel only painted Icarus' legs disappearing into the water. He only paints Icarus' legs to convey a message similar to that of the poem: people are trying to lessen suffering. By painting Icarus as a child, Breughel shows that human beings prefer to reduce suffering rather than face it. The speaker not only references a historical example, but also uses modern examples, metaphors, and other poetic devices to portray the human race as intent on ignoring suffering. For example, the speaker says, “While someone else is eating or opening a window or just/walking dully” (4). The speaker means that suffering occurs all the time, but human beings who are not directly affected by suffering remain ignorant, although suffering occurs around them. The speaker also gives the example of a child who does not want a sibling: "... there must always be / Children who did not particularly want this to happen, a:.