Ploughman’s Thoughts
I bend to the soil, my hands familiar with the roughness of earth, feeling the rhythm of the furrow beneath me. Above, the sun warms my back, steady and reliable, yet I hear a faint splash in the distance, almost swallowed by the breeze. A boy falls into the water; his wings, they say, were meant to fly, but I pay no mind. The harvest waits, the land demands, and life, in its stubborn continuity, presses on. My world is small, tangible, unshaken by tragedies that seem too distant, too fleeting, to touch my plow.
Connection to Modernism: This monologue reflects Modernist techniques by highlighting fragmentation and selective perception—what the ploughman notices versus what he ignores. Like Auden, it juxtaposes human suffering with ordinary life, emphasizing the difference of the world and questioning traditional notions of significance