"Musee de Beaux Arts" by W.H. Auden poses a question: Does Auden criticize humans for ignoring others' suffering, or does he simply describe the inevitability of suffering? As Eliza Gabbert mentions in her own analysis of the poem, the truth cannot be told; what it can do is pose questions. Auden's poem itself is inspired by painter Pieter Brueghel's "The Fall of Icarus," which is a landscape painting of a townspeople living their normal, day-to-day lives. But in a small section on the bottom right corner, Icarus falls from the sky, effectively drowning to death. Ignorant of this, 'the ploughman may have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, but for him it was not an important failure." This poem came out right at the start of WWII, a clear display of ignorance -- or inevitability -- of human suffering. At the beginning of the poem, Auden even mentions "the old Masters," the most significant figures at the origin of critical thinking and how it relates to the human race. This points to the argument that Auden is saying suffering is inevitable. Auden also brings perspective up, personifying a ship who may have seen Icarus falling, which "must have seen something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky." Rather than the perceived death that follows Icarus's fall, the ship witnesses something unreal.