The Shield of Achilles Themes  Themes and Meanings (Critical
Guide to Poetry for Students)  Throughout a long career as a
poet, Auden returned again and again to three themes that appear
in “The Shield of Achilles”: the spiritual emptiness that arises
from oppressive government, the essential loneliness of modern
individuals, and the ultimate hope of redemption provided by the
Christian God. As a child in England during the Great Depression
and then as a young man in the United States during World War
II, Auden saw many examples of the mindless acts and hopeless
figures that he places on Achilles’s shield, but he found in
Christianity a way to escape the despair that arises from life
on Earth. In much of his poetry, Auden attempted to speak
universal truths that might change the world. He rejected grand
but ultimately artificial language and wrote about the world
outside rather than about his interior life and personal
struggles.  Auden worked for a short time as a political
propagandist in Spain during that