O I Just Want to Leave This Place: Auden’s Discourse of Thematized Self-Alienation

This article examines theme-rheme organization at discourse level of W.H. Auden’s ‘O Where Are You Going?’. Because a literary text is realized between author and reader, it is not difficult to assume that the verbal organization in the fictional text reveals the author’s main concern. By applying the concept of theme-rheme at clause level to Auden’s text, I argue that the discourse theme of the hero’s departure is commented upon as a mere leaving of the place where he is now, revealing the author’s impulsive desire to leave the place with no prior idea of destination.