Initially the story of Miss Gee comes across as old lady going through life. Though the opening sentence 'let me tell your little story' instantly belittles Miss Gee in the word little showing that it is just a story with little importance. It makes her appear insignificant despite her being the main and only character we see in full detail. This technique is effective as despite her lending her name to the title and being the content of the poem she is small and insignificant. This carries on to when Auden describes her lips 'thin and small' this highlights her insignificant further as it appears to he reader she is old and frail and unappealing. Furthermore it becomes clear that she as a lady is unwanted, even within her own religion for example when she is in the church and she sits in the 'side-aisle', she is on the perimeter in her own religion highlighting even within somewhere she feels she belongs she is still an outsider and she herself is in the side aisle of society. Auden continues this poor description even in the worse moment of her life in the poem for example even with the revaluation of her illness, the doctor highlights her insignificance in saying that cancer happens to 'childless women' and 'men when they retire', this shows that it is towards the end of a persons life when loneliness catches them, and shows that Miss Gee has had this all her life and in some respects it is her own fault she has cancer as she was never a attractive women to men, this seen in the fact this reiterates the status of men and women and Miss Gee has not lived her lived to the potential that is expected from her. The last point in which her insignificance is shown is in her actual death whereby she is 'hung up' and dissected, this in itself is demoralising highlighting no-one really cared about her and she was in some way a very minor piece to a puzzle that is society. The only time she appears to have any significance within society is in her death and how her cancer is one of the more advanced, this allows the reader to interpret the fact that she is only useful In her death and that is e only impressive thing bout her. Therefore one way Auden tells the story of Miss Gee is within the language highlights her insignificance in society.

The way in which Auden uses a upbeat, joyful momentum to the ballad completely disagrees with the content of the poem. For example, the form is much like that of a song used in a celebration and yet the content is so solemn and distasteful in that they 'hang up Miss Gee'. This could be interpreted as either the mockery of Miss Gee in a comical sense or the attempt of Auden at describing a life that is not only a bad day or week but is a solemn, miserable life. Auden focuses on the negatives towards the beginning of the poem in Miss Gees life rather an anything else, highlighted mostly in his description of her clothes, this could be seen as mockery of the lady herself in the way she wears a 'velvet hat with trimmings' and 'grey serge costume'. The language here is clever in that, if this is a mockery of her, then she is hiding her feelings through wild clothing and this highlights a further analysis of Miss Gee in that she has something to hide. This can also be seen through the word 'velvet', which is usually relatively sensual meaning that there could be more than meets the eye with Miss Gee and that she is hiding how she truly feels through her clothing. Addition to the momentum of the ballad, as it goes on there seems to be a build up of inevitability. Firs seen through her bike with its 'harsh back pedal brake' metaphorically showing she cannot move forward and she is stuck. The inevitability is then further pushed to her dream whereby the reality of her bike stops her dream. Then the climax arrives with the use of enjambement just enforce she goes to the doctor: 'the day and nights went by her... like waves around a Cornish wreck', this highlights how time is going by her so quickly and relentlessly like the life she lives, this quickens the pace of the ballad and reflects upon the relentlessness of her life and highlights to the reader the poor amount of living she has actually had. Another way in which we seethe contrast with the content and the rhythm is the brutality at the end of the poem whereby miss Gee is hung up from the ceiling, this is repeated showing that shock is even astonishing to Auden as well as the reader, this brutality is nothing you would see in a common ballad showing a massive contrast. This contrast could show the mockery if it was to be Interpreted a comical sense. Therefore the rhythm of the poem contrasts with the content highlighting either the mockery of Miss Gee or the miserable life she had led and how she had much to show but little ways in which to show it.

In conclusion, Auden tells the story through his use of language in that the negative words he uses highlight Miss Gee's insignificance to society and even within her own religion showing she is a true outsider and has nothing impressive except a tumour so far advanced it is the only thing she is remembered form. Additionally, the rhythm of the poem contrast with the content of it in that the poem is about a woman death and yet there is a upbeat momentum to it, highlighting the misery of Miss Gees life as even her worst times are told in a ballad sense.