Miss Gee reading journal

Title analysis:
Miss Gee? This is clearly the name of a woman, an unmarried woman. Gee is rather an odd surname, and it may just be nothing, but the word "gee" (as in "gee whizz Batman!") is actually a minced oath of "Jesus", just as "darn" is for "damn". Nothing else can be learnt from the main title, but the bracketed notification of the tune, St James's Infirmary, tells us that the poem is to be sung to a blues tune and seeing as blues music is never the most chipper of genres, we can surmise that this poem won't be a joyous read either, unless Auden is ironic in his choice of tune (as it happens, he is not).

Storyline synopsis:
Miss Gee, a spinster (unmarried lady who is older than unmarried ladies usually are) has a Freudian dream about a bull with the face of a vicar with "lowered horn"(PWOAR) chasing her, she then goes to church before going to the doctor, who proceeds to say that she has cancer. After being taken to the hospital, there is a time-jump to when she is dead and her corpse is used for medical study by "Oxford Groupers" who dissect her knee.

Miscellaneous points:

• Ah, it's my old friend, ballad form. Also to be found in  "O what is that sound". It is based on songs and could be sung, which  Miss Gee is plainly intended to be, as it set to a blues tune. It should go without saying (however, i'm still going to say it) that the poem uses "quatrain"- four lines per stanza. This use of a simple, short stanzas helps the reader to understand the words of the poem and the regular ABCB rhyming scheme throughout the poem's 25 stanzas assists in keeping things interesting.
• The diction (words) used in the poem seem rather childish, for example, we readers are asked if we would like to hear a "little" story and Dr. Thomas says that cancer is a "funny" thing. It seems as if Auden is talking down at us. Why? Well, maybe the moral in the story will tell us, if you are in pain, always go to your doctor, just in case it's serious. What sort of text has a moral? Fables do, of course. These are told to children to help them grasp ideas about life and society. It could be argued (for instance, by me) that this poem is doing the same job and it tries to achieve it's aim of teaching the maximum amount of people the dangers of not visiting the doctor by using easily understood language, humour (a bull with the face of a vicar) and sung in a style popular in the era (blues). HOWEVER, the childlike language and tone could also conceivably be used in an almost ironic fashion, as the tone of the poem is quite dark, because, after all is said and done, this is a poem about a woman who has cancer, dies and is then cut up
• The poem is told by an objective and omniscient narrator as is evident from the first line in the poem, which is " Let me tell you a little story".
• Back in the day, I am told that cancer was never refered to directly, only in euthamism. If you had "The Big C", you were going to die and there was nothing you could do about it, so maybe the poem was to inform the population of the danger, because children were never told about cancer and, damnit, you need to know your evil to understand it.
•  Miss Gee has a Freudian dream in which she was the Queen of France and the vicar of Saint Aloysius (the church that she goes to) asks her to dance. There is then a storm and the palace blows down, so she cycles away from a bull with the face of the vicar, charging with lowered horn. So behind the prudish spinster exterior lies repressed sexual feelings for the poor old the vicar, eh? HOLD IT! Miss Gee's bicycle gets slower and slower because of her "back-pedel brake" and the bull was going to overtake. This could be a way of symbolising her cancer.
• Line 51 is a quotation from the lord's prayer; "lead me not into temptation". She could be worried about her love of the vicar.