critical essay on unknown citizen

The Unknown Citizen Summary & Analysis by W. H. Auden

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis
• Poetic Devices
• Vocabulary & References
• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme
• Line-by-Line Explanations

"The Unknown Citizen" was written by the British poet W. H. Auden, not long after he moved to America in 1939. The poem is a kind of satirical elegy written in praise of a man who has recently died and who lived what the government has deemed an exemplary life. This life, really, seems to have been perfectly ho-hum—exemplary only insofar as this man never did anything to question or deviate from society's expectations. On the one hand, the poem implicitly critiques the standardization of modern life, suggesting that people risks losing sight of what it means to be an individual when they focus exclusively on the same status symbols and markers of achievement (like having the right job, the right number of kids, the right car, and so forth). The poem also builds a frightening picture of a world ruled by total conformity and state oppression, in which a bureaucratic government dictates and spies on its citizens' daily lives.

• Read the full text of “The Unknown Citizen”

The Full Text of “The Unknown Citizen”

“the unknown citizen” summary, “the unknown citizen” themes.

Oppression, Surveillance, and the State

• Before Line 1

Standardization and Conformity

• Lines 18-24
• Lines 25-29

Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Unknown Citizen”

Before line 1, lines 1-5.

​​​​​​ ... ... the Greater Community.

Except for the ... ... Fudge Motors Inc.

Yet he wasn't ... ... liked a drink.

Lines 14-17

The Press are ... ... left it cured.

Lines 18-21

Both Producers Research ... ... and a frigidaire.

Lines 22-27

Our researchers into ... ... with their education.

Lines 28-29

Was he free? ... ... certainly have heard.

“The Unknown Citizen” Symbols

Bureaucratic Departments

• Line 1: “Bureau of Statistics”
• Line 5: “Greater Community”
• Line 10: “Union”
• Line 11: “Union”
• Line 12: “Social Psychology”
• Line 14: “The Press”
• Line 17: “Health-card”
• Line 18: “Producers Research and High-Grade Living”
• Line 19: “Instalment Plan”
• Line 22: “Public Opinion”
• Line 26: “Eugenist”

The Modern Man

• Lines 20-21: “And had everything necessary to the Modern Man, / A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.”

“The Unknown Citizen” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

Alliteration.

• Line 7: “factory,” “fired”
• Line 8: “Fudge”
• Line 14: “Press,” “paper”
• Line 16: “Policies,” “prove”
• Line 17: “his Health-card,” “he,” “was once,” “hospita,” “cured”
• Line 20: “Modern Man”
• Line 23: “he held”
• Line 24: “peace,” “peace,” “war,” “went”
• Line 25: “population”
• Line 26: “parent”
• Line 28: “Was,” “he,” “Was,” “he happy”
• Line 8: “Fudge Motors Inc.”
• Line 8: “employers, Fudge”
• Line 21: “phonograph, a,” “radio, a”
• Line 24: “peace, he,” “peace: when,” “war, he”
• Line 28: “free?,” “ Was,” “happy? The”
• Line 29: “wrong, we”

End-Stopped Line

• Line 2: “complaint,”
• Line 4: “saint,”
• Line 5: “Community.”
• Line 7: “fired,”
• Line 8: “Inc.”
• Line 9: “views,”
• Line 10: “dues,”
• Line 11: “sound)”
• Line 13: “drink.”
• Line 15: “way.”
• Line 16: “insured,”
• Line 17: “cured.”
• Line 20: “Man,”
• Line 21: “frigidaire.”
• Line 23: “year;”
• Line 24: “went.”
• Line 25: “population,”
• Line 26: “generation.”
• Line 27: “education.”
• Line 28: “absurd:”
• Line 29: “heard.”
• Lines 1-2: “be / One”
• Lines 3-4: “agree / That”
• Lines 6-7: “retired / He”
• Lines 12-13: “found / That”
• Lines 14-15: “day / And”
• Lines 18-19: “declare / He”
• Lines 19-20: “Plan / And”
• Lines 22-23: “content / That”

Rhetorical Question

• Line 28: “Was he free? Was he happy?”

“The Unknown Citizen” Vocabulary

Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

• Fudge Motors Inc.
• Instalment Plan
• (Location in poem: Line 1: “Bureau”)

Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Unknown Citizen”

Rhyme scheme, “the unknown citizen” speaker, “the unknown citizen” setting, literary and historical context of “the unknown citizen”, more “the unknown citizen” resources, external resources.

In Auden's Own Voice — "The Unknown Citizen" read by the poet himself. 

Auden's Life and Work — A valuable resource from the Poetry Foundation. 

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier — More information about the Tomb that exists in Arlington National Cemetary.

The Elegy Form — Ten brilliant elegies, taken from the classical era all the way up to the contemporary. 

The Five-Year Plans — An educational resource looking at the way Russia restructured its society in the 20th century. 

LitCharts on Other Poems by W. H. Auden

As I Walked Out One Evening

Epitaph on a Tyrant

Funeral Blues (Stop all the clocks)

In Memory of W. B. Yeats

Musée des Beaux Arts

Refugee Blues

September 1, 1939

The More Loving One

The Shield of Achilles

Ask LitCharts AI: The answer to your questions

Critical Analysis of The Unknown Citizen by W.H. Auden

The Unknown Citizen by W. H. Auden (To JS/07 M 378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State) He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint, For in everything he did he served the Greater Community. Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn’t a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on his Union shows it was sound) And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink. The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way. Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured, And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured. Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan And had everything necessary to the Modern Man, A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire. Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation. And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

A Critical Analysis of the Poem Wystan Hugh Auden was an American poet of British origin, who was born in York, England in 1907. He studied in Christ Church, Oxford and in his youth was influenced by poets like Thomas Hardy, Robert Frost and Emily Dickinson. His first collection of poems titled "Poems" was privately published in 1928, but it was in 1930 when a second collection called "Poems"(with a different set of poems) was published that he came to be known for his ability to write on current topics and in many verse forms. He carved a niche for himself among Modern poets. He travelled to Germany, Iceland, China and also served in the Spanish Civil war. These journeys broadened his intellectual horizon and the experiences provided him a sound base for his writings. In fact, his poetry portrays a longing , a journey, a quest. In 1939 he moved to America and became an American citizen. It was here that his thinking changed from socialism to Christianity and theology. He was a celebrated playwright, an essayist and editor too. His works exuded great influence on both sides of the Atlantic. He died in 1973 in Vienna, Austria.

In the poem "The Unknown Citizen" Auden has very aptly described the life of a modern man, a faceless, assembly line produced entity and has also described modern society where any aberration to the rule is frowned upon. This poem is written in blank verse, the tool of modern poets which has no rhyme , no metre ,to express their angst against society. Blank verse is a form of rebellion against the accepted norms of verse which were prevalent during the previous eras. The poet uses satire to caricature the life of "The citizen", who is just a numerical on the population register. He is supposed to lead a life which is to be led by a million other beings. In fact, one can catch a glimpse of the tomb of the Unknown Soldier where the name of a person who has laid down his life for his country does not even merit a mention.

Auden has perfectly used this literary form to create a picture of the Orwellian society where Big Brother, i.e. the government keeps a tab on everything an individual does, right from his birth to his death. He is registered by a number, no name because a name would give him an identity. He is a record in the Bureau of Statistics His existence on earth is monitored by different government agencies. While reading the poem one gets a feeling of a communist/socialist society where each person’s contribution to larger good of the community is got be his/her only goal, where deviating from the beaten track shall be noted and maybe, punished. The citizen in question did whatever was expected of him and therefore in the "modern sense" was a saint. He did not create any trouble for anyone, did the right thing at the right time, he went to war when it was demanded of him and came back to work after the war. He did not use his opinion to influence anyone, not even himself. In fact he did not think at all. He fulfilled all the criteria that portray him as a successful man. His house had all the modern gadgets of that era, right from a radiogram to a refrigerator and yes, the right number of children too. So regulated was his life that he responded to advertisements in the correct manner. He went through life like a zombie and so the state rewards him with an epitaph. The reader has a feeling of invasion of privacy by the state, which is very much a part of modern day life, whether we like it or not. It is, as if Auden had a premonition of what modern day life would be like. We, in the 21st century too, lead a similar life, though we hardly realize it. Nobody is bothered about an individual’s happiness; in fact the word is fast becoming synonymous with material acquisitions. He very rightly asks "Was he free? Was he happy?", because these feelings have really become outdated.

The portrayal of an individual in today’s society by Auden is rather scary because we have become immune to all those feelings that were meant to set us apart as human beings, the best amongst God’s creations. We have all lost our identity and are, let’s face it, a part of a faceless crowd.

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A Summary and Analysis of W. H. Auden’s ‘The Unknown Citizen’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Its title echoing the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, ‘The Unknown Citizen’ is a poem that demonstrates W. H. Auden’s fine ability to fuse irony and wit with pathos and pity. Written in 1939, the poem was one of the first Auden wrote after he moved from Britain to the United States.

You can read ‘The Unknown Citizen’ here before proceeding to our analysis below.

‘The Unknown Citizen’ begins with a prefatory dedication which identifies this ‘unknown citizen’ only by a number (which roughly follows the structure of US social security numbers).

Auden’s dedication suggests the poem was written to be inscribed on a marble monument to this ‘unknown citizen’, but of course, such a monument is fictional (as is the ‘Bureau of Statistics’ in the poem’s opening line). His ‘unknown citizen’ is being memorialised because of his remarkable averageness.

What is Auden saying with this fake eulogy for the most average of Joes? He’s making a satirical point, and this point is apparent right from that dedication at the start of the poem.

This ‘Unknown Citizen’ has no name: like the narrator of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s 1923 dystopian novel We , he is known only by a number, the number that this fictional Bureau of Statistics uses to identify him. As Patrick McGoohan – playing ‘Number 6’ in the 1960s cult drama The Prisoner – would later protest: ‘I am not a number! I am a free man!’

And this is Auden’s point: in the imagined (future) world of ‘The Unknown Citizen’, people have lost all trace of individuality or personal identity: averageness and conformity are the ideal, and people are just numbers on a file or record somewhere rather than individuals with thoughts, feelings, fears, and aspirations of their own.

How ‘free’ they are is a matter of doubt: the State (back to that rather Orwellian ‘Bureau of Statistics’) has this unknown citizen on file, even though he has apparently committed no crime, and much is known about the life and habits of this decidedly ordinary man, implying state surveillance and monitoring.

There are ‘reports on his conduct’, his Trade ‘Union reports that he paid his dues’, and in turn, the State’s own ‘report on his Union shows it was sound’.

As so often in his poetry, Auden seems almost prophetic: here, in foreseeing the rise of Big Data, social media networks selling our information, and tech companies tracking our digital footprint so they eventually seem to know more about our habits, and our likes and dislikes, than we even do ourselves.

Then there is the broader idea of ‘freedom’ and the role social conditioning plays in restricting our behaviour, because we want to conform, we want to ‘get on’ in life, we want other people’s approval.

He has all the mod cons that a person of his generation in the West is expected to have (a record player, a radio, a car, and a fridge), and socialised with his ‘mates’, dutifully bought a paper every day to keep informed (so say the Press, who have also been watching him), and responded to advertisements appropriately, suggesting a pliable and impressionable consumer.

The newspaper reference does the same thing: think how many times the role of the media in influencing public opinion.

Obviously there’s something sinister in all of this, but what Auden manages so deftly here – and in doing so, reminds us of why he was such a master of tone and poetic voice – is the dystopian writer’s trick of presenting all of this in such a cool, ‘official’ manner that it strikes us as more unsettling.

The ‘voice’ of the poem (we can’t really call them a speaker or narrator, and perhaps we cannot even call them a ‘them’) is that of an official government report.

This obviously chimes with the idea of the public memorial (such as the inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior), but it also enacts the creeping encroachment of the state into people’s private lives, making them public affairs.

The fact that the ‘researchers into Public Opinion’ even know, or profess to know, which opinions this Unknown Citizen held at certain times of the year tells us that we are not a million miles away from the world of ‘thoughtcrime’ that Orwell would help to put at the centre of dystopian writing.

But Orwell is following Auden rather than the other way around: Nineteen Eighty-Four would be published ten years after Auden wrote ‘The Unknown Citizen’ (although the idea of ‘thoughtcrime’ and the ‘thought police’, and indeed the terms, predate Orwell: they first appeared in 1934 in a book about Japan).

Another way of putting this is to argue that tone is central to the effectiveness of ‘The Unknown Citizen’: if Auden had written a poem from his own perspective, or in his own personal ‘voice’ using the lyric ‘I’, to lament this worrying level of state surveillance, he would have risked coming across as too much of a political poet, a poet who is very obviously trying to make a point in a not particularly sophisticated manner.

As Auden’s response to the death of W. B. Yeats , written in the same year as ‘The Unknown Citizen’, demonstrates, he was wary of poetry being used as a mere political tool to ‘make things happen’. The adoption of a flat, bureaucratic state ‘voice’ – a faceless voice, and an impersonal one – gives the poem a dark humour, even while Auden clearly is making a point with the poem.

This adoption of a fictional voice to pay ‘tribute’ to the fictional unknown citizen reaches its most delicious apogee in the poem’s final couplet: this impersonal administrative voice of the government dismisses the question of whether the unknown citizen was ‘free’ or ‘happy’ as absurd.

The final line, ‘Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard’, is sinister in its implication (that nothing about this model citizen’s life was unknown to those who monitored him so closely) but also wonderfully sardonic, even ironic, because it reveals the failure of emotional empathy and imagination the state suffers from: they cannot conceive of anything that cannot be reported on, recorded, or gathered as data.

You can listen to Auden reciting ‘The Unknown Citizen’ here .

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W. H. Auden: Poems

By w. h. auden, w. h. auden: poems summary and analysis of "the unknown citizen".

The poem begins with an ironic epigraph, “To JS/07 M 378 / This Marble Monument / Is Erected by the State.”

The Bureau of Statistics and all other reports show that he will complied with his duties to “the Greater Community.” He worked in a factory and paid his union dues. He had no odd views. The Social Psychology investigators found him to be normal, as did the Press: he was popular, “liked a drink,” bought the daily paper, and had the “normal” reactions to advertisements. He was fully insured. The Health-card report shows he was in the hospital only once, and left cured.

The Producers Research and High-Grade Living investigators also showed he was normal and “had everything necessary to the Modern Man”—radio, car, etcetera. The Public Opinion researchers found “he held the proper opinions for the time of year,” supporting peace in peacetime but serving when there was war. He was married and had the appropriate number of five children, according to the Eugenicist. He never interfered with the public schools.

It is absurd to ask whether he was free or happy, for if anything had been wrong, “we should certainly have heard.”

“The Unknown Citizen” (1940) is one of Auden’s most famous poems. Often anthologized and read by students in high school and college, it is renowned for its wit and irony in complaining about the stultifying and anonymous qualities of bureaucratic, semi-socialist Western societies. Its structure is that of a satiric elegy, as though the boring, unknown citizen was so utterly unremarkable that the state honored him with a poetic monument about how little trouble he caused for anyone. It resembles the “Unknown Soldier” memorials that nations erect to honor the soldiers who fought and died for their countries and whose names have been lost to posterity; Britain’s is located in Westminster Abbey and the United States’ is located in Arlington, Virginia. This one, in an unnamed location, lists the unknown man as simply “JS/07 M 378.”

The rhyme scheme changes a few times throughout the poem. Most frequently the reader notices rhyming couplets. These sometimes use the same number of syllables, but they are not heroic couplets—no, they are not in iambic pentameter—they are often 11 or 13 syllables long, or of differing lengths. These patterns increase the dry humor of the poem.

Auden’s “Unknown Citizen” is not anonymous like the Unknown Soldier, for the bureaucracy knows a great deal about him. The named agencies give the sense, as early as 1940, that a powerful Big Brother kind of bureaucracy watches over its citizens and collects data on them and keeps it throughout one’s life. This feeling makes the poem eerie and prescient; one often thinks of the dystopian, totalitarian states found in the writings of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley or the data-driven surveillance state of today. In Auden’s context, one might think of the state-focused governments of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini.

The Big Brother perspective begins from the very outset of the poem, with its evocation of a Bureau of Statistics. The man has had every aspect of his life catalogued. He served his community, he held a job, he paid union dues, he did not hold radical views, he reacted normally to advertisements, he had insurance, he possessed the right material goods, he had proper opinions about current events, and he married and had the right amount of children. It does not appear on paper that he did anything wrong or out of place. In fact, “he was a saint” from the state’s perspective, having “served the Greater Community.” The words used to describe him—“normal,” “right,” “sensible,” “proper,” “popular”—indicate that he is considered the ideal citizen. He is praised as “unknown” because there was nothing interesting to know. Consider, in comparison, the completely normalized protagonist Emmet in The Lego Movie .

At the end of the poem, the closing couplet asks, “Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: / Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.” With these last lines comes the deeper meaning of the poem, the irony that despite all of the bureaucratic data gathering, some aspect of the individual might not have been captured. It becomes clear that the citizen is also “unknown” because in this statistical gathering of data, the man’s individuality and identity are lost. This bureaucratic society, focused on its official view of the common good, assesses a person using external, easily-catalogued characteristics rather than respect for one’s uniqueness, one’s particular thoughts, feelings, hopes, fears, and goals.

Interestingly, and ironically, the speaker himself is also unknown. The professionals in the poem— “his employers,” “our Social Psychology workers,” “our researchers into Public Opinion,” “our Eugenicist”— are just as anonymous and devoid of personality. While a person might be persuaded that he is free or happy, the evidence of his life shows that he is just one more cog in the faceless, nameless bureaucratic machine.

W. H. Auden: Poems Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for W. H. Auden: Poems is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Q) Discuss WH. Auden's vernacular language in the poem " Funeral Blues?

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https://www.gradesaver.com/w-h-auden-poems/study-guide/summary-funeral-blues-stop-all-the-clocks

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Study Guide for W. H. Auden: Poems

W. H. Auden: Poems study guide contains a biography of Wystan Hugh Auden, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, character analysis, and a full summary and analysis on select poems.

• About W. H. Auden: Poems
• W. H. Auden: Poems Summary
• Character List

Essays for W. H. Auden: Poems

W. H. Auden: Poems essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of W. H. Auden's poetry.

• Communist Poetry of the 1930s and Modernism
• Three Examples of Auden’s Wartime Poetry: In Time of War: Sonnet XVI, Spain 1937, and 1st September 1939
• Auden's Poetry and "Home and Away": Art in Wartime
• Recycling Art; the Reuse of Artistic Thought and Theme in Auden, Joyce, and Eliot
• Understanding Rejection in “Disabled” and “Refugee Blues”

Wikipedia Entries for W. H. Auden: Poems

• Introduction
• Published works

The Unknown Citizen

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Summary and Study Guide

“The Unknown Citizen” is a satirical elegy written by W. H. Auden shortly after he emigrated from England to the United States in 1939. It appeared in The New Yorker magazine on January 6, 1940, and was collected later into Another Time (1940). This collection featured what would become some of Auden’s most well-known poems, including “September 1, 1939,” “Funeral Blues,” “In Memory of W. B. Yeats,” and “Musee des Beaux Arts”, and helped solidify Auden’s reputation as a premier poet of his age. “The Unknown Citizen” is generally looked at in the light of the time it was written, on the eve of World War II. Many of Auden’s poems in Another Time were written between 1936 and1939, during the years of Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and the growing fascist movements after World War I. Auden’s stance was consistently anti-fascist and humanitarian. In “The Unknown Citizen,” he uses the unusual first-person plural narration of an unspecified State to laud one of its deceased members for his unfailing conformity. The poem shows Auden’s typical attention to rhyme , even in ironic context .

Poet Biography

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Wystan Hugh Auden was a renowned poet who also wrote stage plays, screenplays, opera libretti, adaptations, and criticism throughout his career. He was born in York, England, on February 21, 1907, and raised by his physician father, George Augustus Auden, and his Anglican mother, Constance, a trained nurse who did not practice. Auden had two older brothers and the family resided near Birmingham, England (See: Further Reading & Resources ).

From the age of eight, Auden went to boarding schools. At St. Edmund’s School in Surrey, he met lifelong friend and future novelist, Christopher Isherwood. In 1922, he went to Gresham’s School where he fell away from the Anglican faith, acted in Shakespeare, and discovered poetry. At 18, he enrolled at Christ Church, Oxford, to study biology and engineering. However, after attending lectures by J. R. R. Tolkien, he switched to English as a discipline. At this time, he independently met fellow students Cecil Day-Lewis, Louis MacNeice, and Stephen Spender. Collectively, they are known as the “Oxford Group” and/or the “Auden Group” (a misnomer since they did not actually meet all at once until 1947). At this time, Auden also reconnected with Isherwood. In 1928, he went abroad for nine months, where Isherwood joined him. After he returned to England, his first book, Poems 1928 , was privately printed by Spender. The poet T. S. Eliot, whom Auden admired, helped him publish this collection commercially.

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From 1930-1935, Auden worked as a schoolmaster, and within the documentary film industry. Auden wrote and co-authored work with various collaborators throughout the 1930s (Benjamin Britten, MacNeice, Spender, and Isherwood among them). In 1933, he regained his faith, which later spurred his decision to return to Anglicanism (an event that occurred several years later in 1940). The 1930s was filled with travel to countries like Spain, China, the United States, and Belgium.

In 1935, although openly gay, Auden married Erika Mann, the German novelist Thomas Mann’s daughter. An outspoken lesbian who stood up against rising fascism, Mann was threatened by the advent of the Nazism in Germany. Auden not only agreed to marry Mann, but also arranged for his gay friend to marry Mann’s lover so that the two women could be together. While they never lived together, Auden and Mann remained married until Mann’s death in 1969.

Auden continued to write, publishing Look! Stranger in 1936 (later republished as On This Island in the United States in 1937). In 1939, Auden immigrated with Isherwood to the United States. Isherwood went on to live in California, while Auden chose New York City for his residence. Shortly afterward, he met poet Chester Kallman, who became a romantic partner, lifelong friend, and companion. When World War II broke out, Auden volunteered to return to England, but was told he was not needed. When he was later drafted into the United States Army, he was rejected for medical reasons. Auden moved into a house in Brooklyn Heights with writers Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, Paul and Jane Bowles, and others. He published two new collections of poems in the early 1940s, Another Time (1940), which contains some of his most famous poems, and The Double Man (1941).

He taught at The University of Michigan and Swarthmore College. For The Time Being , published in 1944, contained two long poems, The Sea and the Mirror and For the Time Being . The next year, Auden returned to Europe, and after viewing the post-war landscape, decided to resettle in Manhattan, leaving Pennsylvania. He worked as a freelance writer and visiting professor at schools like The New School, Bennington, and Smith, among others. The Collected Poetry of W. H. Auden was published in 1945 and a year later, in 1946, Auden became a naturalized United States citizen. In 1948, The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. Several other volumes of poetry succeeded this, including Collected Shorter Poems, 1930-1944 (1950), Nones (1951), and Shield of Achilles (1955), which won the National Book Award for Poetry in 1956.

In 1956, Auden began to divide his time between winters in Manhattan, weeks of teaching at Oxford, and summers in Austria. He continued to support himself as a freelance writer, giving readings and lectures. In the 1960s, he wrote Homage to Clio (1960), About the House (1965), Collected Shorter Poems, 1927-1957 (1966), Collected Longer Poems (1968), and City Without Walls , and Other Poems (1969) The National Book Committee awarded him the National Medal for Literature in 1967. His last book of poems during his lifetime, Epistle to a Godson, and Other Poems was published in 1972. That same year, Auden moved permanently to Oxford, which provided him a cottage at Christ Church. In 1973, at the age of 66, Auden died of heart failure. He was buried in Austria, and a memorial stone was placed in Westminster Abbey. His final poems were posthumously published in Thank You, Fog: Last Poems (1974).

Auden, W. H. “ The Unknown Citizen .” 1940. Poets.org .

The poem opens with an epitaph in which the reader learns that a “Marble Monument / [has been] erected by the State” to “JS/07 M 378.” A listing of the man’s attributes as evaluated by said State follows. Their “Bureau of Statistics” (Line 1) assures the reader that the man had no objections against him and was considered “a saint” (Line 4), who served the populace at large. His life was spent working in “a [car] factory” (Line 7) and he had no trouble there. He paid his “Union [. . .] dues” (Line 10) regularly and had an average social life with his friends. “The Press” (Line 14) reports on his purchasing of newspapers and “his reactions to advertisements” (Line 15), which they cite as never unusual. He was not often sick and understood his financial payments plans. He was conscious of the conveniences of the “Modern Man.” Another office, that of “Public Opinion” (Line 22) reports that he went along with the common responses to political events. Finally, the State’s “Eugenist” (Line 26) approves of his marriage, and his number of offspring. The children’s “teachers” note that he never tried to sway their teaching agendas. When asked about the man’s status as an individual, including his rights to freedom and happiness, the State dismisses this as a ridiculous concern, noting that they would have been made aware if anything were amiss.

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The Unknown Citizen

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(To JS/07 M 378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint, And all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint, For in everything he did he served the Greater Community. Except for the War till the day he retired He worked in a factory and never got fired, But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc. Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues, (Our report on his Union shows it was sound) And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink. The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way. Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured, And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured. Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan And had everything necessary to the Modern Man, A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire. Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year; When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went. He was married and added five children to the population, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation. And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education. Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

From Another Time by W. H. Auden, published by Random House. Copyright © 1940 W. H. Auden, renewed by the Estate of W. H. Auden. Used by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

More by this poet

The shield of achilles.

    She looked over his shoulder        For vines and olive trees,     Marble well-governed cities        And ships upon untamed seas,     But there on the shining metal        His hands had put instead     An artificial wilderness        And a sky like lead.

In Memory of W. B. Yeats

He disappeared in the dead of winter: The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted, And snow disfigured the public statues; The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day. What instruments we have agree The day of his death was a dark cold day.

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well That, for all they care, I can go to hell, But on earth indifference is the least We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.

Preliminary Report from the Committee on Appropriate Postures for the Suffering

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The Unknown Citizen by W.H. Auden: Summary and Analysis

In this poem Auden shows that poverty and totalitarian regimes are not the only enemies of freedom. Human freedom is restricted in subtle ways in the so-called free capitalist states as well. The average modern man in a mercantile society is ridden heavily by the more of technocratic, bureaucratic and other regimented establishments.

The Unknown Citizen, has no name; he has only a number, to whom the monument has been built and has been found to be without any fault. He was a saint not because he searched for God but because he served the government perfectly. He did not get dismissed from his job. He was a member of the Union and paid all his dues to the union. A report by the Union shows that it was a balance union and did not take extreme views on anything. The social psychology workers found that he was popular among his fellow workers and had a drink with them now and then. He also bought a newspaper every day. He reached to the advertisements normally.

He had good health and although he went to the hospital once, he came out quite cured. The citizen was sensible about buying things on an installment basis. He had everything a modern man needed at home. Moreover, this ideal citizen was found to be sensible in his view. When there was peace, he supported it. But when there was war, he was ready to fight. He didn’t hold his personal views on anything. He had the right number of children and he did not quarrel with the education they got.

Many European governments of that time resorted to dictatorship of some kind or another and the individualism of general citizen was at stake. The average citizen was made absolutely conformist. He had been distorted into a totally dictated harmless mechanism. Everything about him could be understood in some kind of statistical formula put out by the government or its agencies. He had surrendered his individuality and was often identified by a number rather than personality features which were of course common to all citizens. The poet now asks the important questions. Was this man free? Was he happy? No government statistics can ever answer these kinds of questions.

The Unknown Citizen is a typical Auden’s poem in that it shows the poet’s profound concern for the modern world and its problems. A keen, intelligent observer of the contemporary scene, Auden was one of the first to realize that the totalitarian socialist state would be no Utopia and that man there would be reduced to the position of a cog in the wheel. A citizen will have no scope to develop his initiative or to assert his individuality. He will be made to conform to the State in all things. It is the picture of such a citizen, in a way similar to Eliot’s Hollow Men , which is ironically presented in the poem. Auden dramatizes his theme by showing the glaring disparity between the complete statistical information about the citizen compiled by the State and the sad inadequacy of the judgments made about him. The poet seems to say, statistics cannot sum up an individual and physical facts are inadequate to evaluate human happiness- for man does not live by bread alone.

In the phrase 'The Unknown' the word 'unknown' means ordinary, obscure. So the whole phrase means 'those ordinary, obscure soldiers as citizens of the state who laid down their lives for defending their motherland wanted name and fame, but remained unknown. The title of Auden's poem parodies this. Thus 'The Unknown Citizen' means the ordinary average citizen in the modern industrialized urban society. He has no individuality and identity. He has no desire for self-assertion. He likes to remain unknown.

At the end of the poem the poet asks two questions. Was he free? Was he happy? No government statistics can ever answer these kinds of questions. By asking these questions, the poet is drawing our attention to the question of freedom and happiness. And ironically, the poet suggests that the modern man is slave to routine and he is incapable of understanding such concepts freedom and happiness. Therefore, such a question in this context would be ‘absurd’. Thus, this poem The Unknown Citizen is a bitter attack on modern society-its indifference towards individuality and identity. The only way for an individual to survive in a regimented society is to conform, obey and live in perpetual mental slavery. Such a creative is this ‘unknown citizen’ who is utterly devoid of any urge for self-assertion. Such a modern man is a slave to the routine, is incapable of understanding such concepts as freedom and happiness.

The sub-title of the poem vividly shows that it is a memorial poem written for the occasion of the erection of a national monument by the state to the ideal citizen. The irony lies in here that this so called ideal citizen is a valueless, colorless entity, nothing more than the mechanical part of a highly mechanized society. He is made a representative of the mass society and had no distinctive qualities by which one could identify him. The poem is written in a clear and simple style and is free from obscure references.

Cite this Page!

Sharma, Kedar N. "The Unknown Citizen by W.H. Auden: Summary and Analysis." BachelorandMaster, 19 Nov. 2013, bachelorandmaster.com/britishandamericanpoetry/the-unknown-citizen.html.

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W. H. Auden: Biography

W. H. Auden

The unknown citizen.

(To JS/07 M 378 This Marble Monument Is Erected by the State)

#EnglishWriters 1940 Another Auden Auden, Copyright From H H House Random Time W W by by published ©

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Other works by W. H. Auden...

Did you ever hear about Cocaine L… She lived in Cocaine town on Coca… She had a cocaine dog and a cocain… They fought all night with a cocai… She had cocaine hair on her cocain…

Perfectly happy now, he looked at… An exile making watches glanced up… And went on working; where a hospi… A joiner touched his cap; an agent… Some of the trees he’d planted wer…

Time can say nothing but I told y… Time only knows the price we have… If I could tell you, I would let… If we should weep when clowns put… If we should stumble when musician…

He disappeared in the dead of wint… The brooks were frozen, the airpor… And snow disfigured the public sta… The mercury sank in the mouth of t… What instruments we have agree

“O where are you going?” said read… “That valley is fatal where furnac… Yonder’s the midden whose odours w… That gap is the grave where the ta… “O do you imagine,” said fearer to…

Underneath an abject willow, Lover, sulk no more: Act from thought should quickly fo… What is thinking for? Your unique and moping station

O what is that sound which so thri… Down in the valley drumming, drumm… Only the scarlet soldiers, dear, The soldiers coming. O what is that light I see flashi…

Carry her over the water, And set her down under the tree, Where the culvers white all days a… And the winds from every quarter, Sing agreeably, agreeably, agreeab…

Time will say nothing but I told… Time only knows the price we have… If I could tell you I would let y… If we should weep when clowns put… If we should stumble when musician…

When shall we learn, what should b… We cannot choose what we are free… Although the mouse we banished yes… Is an enraged rhinoceros today, Our value is more threatened than…

Let me tell you a little story About Miss Edith Gee; She lived in Clevedon Terrace At number 83. She’d a slight squint in her left…

He told us we were free to choose But, children as we were, we thoug… “Paternal Love will only use Force in the last resort On those too bumptious to repent.”

Fish in the unruffled lakes Their swarming colours wear, Swans in the winter air A white perfection have, And the great lion walks

Victor was a little baby, Into this world he came; His father took him on his knee an… 'Don’t dishonour the family name.' Victor looked up at his father

Henry Adams Was mortally afraid of Madams: In a disorderly house He sat quiet as a mouse. Mallarmé

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Critical Analysis of W.H Auden Poems; The Unknown Citizen, As I Walked Out One Evening and Musee des Beaux Arts.pdf

As I Walked Out One Evening by W.H. Auden. " As I Walked Out One Evening " , a poem written by W.H. Auden, presents multifarious universal themes-love, time and death. It comes under the genre of dramatic literary ballad, for it is embellished with figurative language and written in quatrains, but also shares some features of sonnet, as it is rhymed. Death, one of the most significant theme, is metaphorically presented in the first stanza. " Fields of harvest wheat " delineates that wheat has fully-grown and is ready to reap just like the crowd wandering in the streets are oblivious to their approaching death. This imagery has been used to conjure up that golden hue one might expect at sunset and captures a sense of movement—the swaying wheat mirroring the movement of the crowd. The poet has rigorously juxtaposed two different images to articulate his views about death. Auden rhymes street with wheat. The rhyme strengthens the connection between the urban and the rural environments by making them sound connected. The strengthened connection reinforces the idea that the people on the street, like the wheat in the field, are doomed. Brimming river " represents time; the way river gushes in a continuous manner, time also passes by and waits for none. Here, Auden has shown the viciousness of time. No matter how hard we may try we could never stop the river from flowing. Similarly, the imagery of the bells of the clock tower remind us of the Time that is passing-the time that will not stop for us. "Whirr and chime" signifies that time is more powerful than anything human, even love. In addition, the clocks also uphold that Time is the triumphant force since it is a race that can never be won by humanity and there are never any exceptions to its limits nor are there any survivors of its boundaries.

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The Unknown Citizen By W.H. Auden Summary, Notes And Line By Line Analysis In English

Table of Contents

Introduction

The poem tells us about the existence of an average citizen who is unknown to the community. It explores the “unknown citizen” through the viewpoint of various federal authorities and how he was never seen or heard. 

About The Poet 

W. H. Auden was born on February 21, 1907, in York, England. He was a brilliant writer, playwright, librettist, editor, and essayist. The “Age of Anxiety” garnered Auden the Pulitzer Prize in 1948. He died of heart failure at the age of 66 in Vienna, Austria.

Lines 1 – 13

The speaker claims there were no “official complaints” against the unknown citizen, and he was considered a “saint”. Except when he went to war, he was also profoundly dedicated to serving the “Greater Community.” No one in the administration or his workplace had any problems with him. He was cherished by his peers, and he was outgoing. 

Lines 14 – 21

The speaker adds that the citizen was always punctual in buying a newspaper every day. He had a health insurance and was hospitalised once, however he was cured. The speaker also states that the man was equipped with all the technologies, needed by a “Modern Man” including a gramophone (phonograph), a radio, a car and a refrigerator.

Lines 22-29

As per the speaker, the man had “proper opinions” for the time of year. He believed whatever the government compelled him to think. The man had a typical wife and five children, which was normal “for a parent of his generation”. Lastly, the speaker raises questions, “Was he free? Was he happy? He answers there was nothing wrong, else “we should certainly have heard,” taking a strike at the administration.

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The Unknown Citizen by W.H Auden : Summar, Questions Answers and Analysis

Table of Contents

The Unknown Citizen by W.H Auden

All of you would agree with me that poetry is not easy to understand. The poet is a gifted man, an inspired person who packs all his emotions and thoughts into small little words. It is for us to understand the meaning of words, their association with other words and the feelings of the poet in order to understand the message that he wants to convey to us in the poem especially in a poem like The Unknown Citizen . Many questions arise in our mind.

Why has the poet chosen a title that he has? Why does he want to talk about a citizen who is unknown?

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Why doesn’t he use as many metaphors and similes as other poets do?

Now these questions I think come up in your mind but I’m sure you will get the answers as we proceed with the poem. My objective today is to give you an in-depth analysis and understanding of this poem.

All of you would have read poetry that would have touched your hearts where the poet has transported you into another world- a world of imagination which takes us away far away from the real world in which we live. Keats, for example, in the opening line of one of his most famous odes ‘Ode To a Nightingale ‘ says ;

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Now this line captures our hearts and takes us along with the poet into the world of the nightingale to listen to the song of the nightingale which is so melodious , so happy and so free. Wordsworth defined poetry as spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. He said that amidst nature he could hear the still sad music of humanity. Don’t we also hear it along with him? We do of course but if we go to The Unknown Citizen with these expectations we are in for a surprise.

W.H Auden does not transport us into another world. he transfixes us to the here and now he talks about the mechanical, the monotonous life that we lead.He succeeds in doing what he sets out to do to tell us how immense is the control of the state over the individual.

The poet in this poem talks about the absolute necessity for man to safeguard his freedom and to protect his happiness from the clutches of the state. He tells us how important it is for man to devote a little bit of time for himself for his freedom and for his little happiness. W. H Davies in his poem Leisure says:

WHAT is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?— No time to stand beneath the boughs, And stare as long as sheep and cows: (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

The next line of the poem that our reports on the union said that the opinion of the union was sound tells us of the immense control of the state over the individual. It doesn’t leave him any privacy, any freedom to be on his own. That the citizen was an amiable and sociable man is reported by the Social Psychology workers .The Social Psychology workers, researchers report that he loved to share a drink with his mates it was. It should be noted that it was the pastime of the era that when workers worked for long hours in the factory while returning home stopped at a pub and had a drink as attains the normalcy of the unknown citizen.

The word popular further enhances the citizens compliance with the given and the accepted. As a conscientious man he bought a newspaper every day and his reaction to advertisements were normal in every way. The policy is taken out in his name proof that he was fully insured. His health card said that he was only once in hospital but he left it cured. Producers Research and High-Grade Living reported that he was fully sensible to the installment plan. He had everything that a modern man needed to have to lead a comfortable life. He had a gramophone, a car, a frigidaire and a radio.

The next few lines talk about the family of the unknown citizen. He was married and he had five children- the right number of children according to the population expert that a parent of his generation needed to have. The poet says that all the government agencies and research organizations were happy with the individual like the Bureau of Statistics, Producers Research and High-Grade Living, the medical department, the press and so on and so forth.

The last couplet which speaks about the individuals own happiness and freedom is very hard-hitting. The poet asks us, despite fulfilling all the expectations of the state, is the individual happy? Is he free? and the last line of the poem which says that had anything been wrong we should certainly have heard tells us of the suffocating control that the state puts the individual under.

The clinical tone which the poet adopts is very apt to describe the flawed methods of the government which based their judgment of an individual on reports and documents of his conformity and his normalcy.

The poem was written in early years of the 20th century. Today we are into the early years of the 21st century. The so many years have elapsed since the writing of the poem The poem still rings true today. The poet tells us that man in his earnestness to fulfill the expectations of a good citizen becomes an unknown citizen.

The poem is very ironical in its tone. What is irony? Irony is a mode of speech where the real meaning is exactly the opposite of what is literally conveyed. I give you an example of irony. My class today all of you know is from 10:00 to 11:00 o’clock. All of you are seated when I come into the class but there is one student who enters a class at 10 minutes to 11. I look at the student and I say this ‘ Oh! good morning, I’m so happy that you’re in time for the next class!’ Actually, I’m not happy with the individual for coming late but in fact I’m angry and I’m ironical in my tone. The best example of irony from literature that I can quote is from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. I would like to read a few sentences of the speech of Antony from Julius Caesar :

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest– For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all, all honourable men– Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral. He was my friend, faithful and just to me: But Brutus says he was ambitious; And Brutus is an honourable man.

What better example of irony can we get than this. After reading of the poem we conclude that the poem is extremely ironic. From the title to the subtitle to the content of the entire poem the poet means one thing and says another.I hope all of you have enjoyed the poem along with me.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

SHORT ANSWERS

1. What does the title of the poem ‘unknown citizen’ signify? The title of the poem ‘unknown citizen’ signifies that the citizen is thoroughly unknown because he doesn’t have any personality or individuality of his own. His name doesn’t bear any importance and it has reduced to a mere identity number.

2. What does the sub-title of the poem ‘Unknown Citizen’ suggest? The sub-title of the poem suggests that the citizen doesn’t possess any individuality of his own. He has reduced himself to be a mere number – the number of his identity card.

3. What according to Auden does the word ‘Saint’ mean in the modern age? According to Auden, the word ‘Saint’ in the modern age means any man who is subservient to the wishes and aspirations of the government.

4. Where was the unknown citizen working? When did he leave his job? The unknown citizen was working in a factory named Fudge Motors Inc. He left his job only once. It was to join the army to fight for his country. (Fudge Motors Inc.)

5. What did the social psychology workers find about the Unknown citizen? The social psychology workers found that the Unknown citizen was popular among his fellow-workers and enjoyed the company of friends

6. What did the press say about the Unknown citizen? The press said that the unknown citizen bought a newspaper everyday and responded to the advertisements properly.

7. What did the health card of the unknown citizen show? The Health card of the unknown citizen showed that he was hospitalized only once in his lifetime. He had left the hospital after getting his disease cured completely.

8. What did Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare about the unknown citizen? Producers Research and High-Grade Living declared that the unknown citizen was fully aware of the advantages of the instalment plan. They said that he had bought phonograph, radio, car, fridge etc on instalment basis.

9. What did the Eugenist say about the unknown citizen? The Eugenist said that the unknown citizen had begotten five children and it was the right number of children the government needed then.

10. What did the teachers say about the Unknown Citizen as a parent? The teacher said that the children of the Unknown Citizen were getting the proper education that the government had insisted. As a father, the Unknown Citizen never interfered with their education.

11. Who is being attacked in this satire? The bureaucratic society where the individual is reduced to a cipher; where conformity is promoted instead of individuality.

PARAGRAPH QUESTIONS 1. Short note on the unknown citizen. As far as the modern dictatorial government is concerned, the unknown citizen is the ideal citizen. The government wants all the citizens to be like him. He has surrendered his own individuality in order to conform himself to the wishes of the government. He hasn’t ever created any problems to the government. He has performed everything that the government wanted from every citizen. He has worked in a factory until his retirement. He has been a member in the trade union and paid all his dues properly. He has availed himself of the instalment system and purchased the essential amenities for the house- hold. He has five children and he hasn’t interfered with their education as the government desired. The Unknown Citizen has been healthy, free and happy. The government has erected a monument for the Unknown Citizen for being an ideal citizen.

2. Irony in the poem ‘The Unknown Citizen’. The poem ‘The Unknown Citizen’ is a satire. W. H. Auden employs irony in the poem which is reflected even in the title. It is about the unknown citizen who is hard to find in the society. It is the wish of the dictatorial government to have such a citizen. The sub-title of the poem says ironically that the unknown citizen doesn’t have any individuality. He has lost even his name. He has reduced himself to an inanimate thing. The dictatorial government has made a number of agencies to maintain their policies. We hear about the citizen not through his individuality but through the Bureau of Statistics. The citizens are being controlled by the secret agencies of the government. These agencies hold the public opinion of the government. The government dictates what a citizen should do and what he should not. It is very ironically said that the unknown citizen is free and happy. It means that if any citizen conforms to the wishes of the government by sacrificing his individuality, he will be free and happy. The government will erect marble monument for him as a token of its gratitude.

ESSAY TYPE QUESTION 1.Critical appreciation of the poem ‘The Unknown Citizen’ W. H. Auden was one of the famous poets of the Twentieth Century. He had written a large number of poems and won many prizes. He had been a professor of poetry at Oxford. He is remarkable for his versatility and fluency. He explores the social and political problems and makes the people think in a rational and moral way. The poem ‘The Unknown Citizen’ is a satire. It ridicules the average citizen who surrenders his own individuality and accepts the wishes or the policies of a dictatorial government. It is about the ideal citizen as seen by the government. The dictatorial government has erected a marble monument for the unknown citizen for conforming the views and policies of the government promptly and completely. This poem is written on the marble in the form of a valuable inscription. It is abundant with irony or ironical statements. In large cities, monuments are erected for the memory of the unknown soldiers who have sacrificed their lives for the sake of the country. These monuments are the pride of the nation. The poet says very ironically that the government has erected a marble monument in the memory of an unknown citizen. The name of the citizen is not written on the marble. But, the number of his identity card is used instead of his name. This shows that the unknown citizen doesn’t possess any individuality of his own. But, as far as the government is concerned, the unknown citizen is their ideal hero. Hence, his life history is inscribed on the marble for others to imitate. The Bureau of Statistics says that the unknown citizen is like a saint. They do not like to call him a saint because they think that the word saint has lost its significance in the modern age. It says also that the conduct of the unknown citizen is agreed by all agencies of the government. It is also agreed that the government can never raise any complaint against him as a citizen. The unknown citizen was working in a factory named fudge Motors Inc. until his retirement. He left his job only once to join the army to fight for his country. As a worker, he made all his employers satisfied and he had never got punished or dismissed. He was a member in a trade union. He paid all his dues promptly and never worked against his union. He was perfectly normal in his attitude to people and was popular among his friends and enjoyed their company. The press remarked that the unknown citizen had good habits. He bought a newspaper everyday and read the advertisements. His health card showed that he had insured his life fully. He had fallen ill only once in his life-time and left the hospital after curing the disease. This showed that he was a healthy person. The commercial institution remarked that he was aware of the instalment system and bought essential things through hire-purchase system as the government wanted. In addition to that, the unknown citizen was satisfied with the public-opinion held by the government agencies. He simply accepted peace when it was a peace-time and joined the army for the country when war was declared. This shows that he was not at all self-reliant. The unknown citizen had five children. He added his share to the population of the country as the government wanted. Even the education of his children were left to the government’s decision or policies. Auden ends the poem sarcastically. He says that he does not know whether the unknown citizen has been free or happy. The government is of the opinion that the citizen who conforms the ideas or the policies of the government without any question will always be happy and remarked that if he had complaints, they would have known it earlier through their different spies or agencies. The qualities prescribed by the government for becoming an ideal citizen is quite ironic. They want their citizens to be passive or conforming so that the government can last for a long time.

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The Unknown Citizen Explication

This essay about W.H. Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen” examines the dehumanizing impact of societal norms and the loss of individuality. Through irony and satire, Auden critiques conformity, portraying the titular citizen as a mere statistic devoid of humanity. The poem highlights the tension between conformity and individuality, criticizing the commodification of human life in a capitalist society. Ultimately, Auden’s work serves as a cautionary tale against sacrificing one’s identity for societal approval, urging readers to resist conformity and embrace their unique selves.

How it works

As a diligent student of literature, it is imperative to explore the layers of meaning woven into the fabric of poetic masterpieces. W.H. Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen” serves as a poignant commentary on the dehumanizing effects of societal norms and the erosion of individuality in a bureaucratic world. Through a careful explication of this thought-provoking poem, one can unearth the complexities surrounding conformity, identity, and the loss of human essence.

At first glance, “The Unknown Citizen” appears to be a simple elegy honoring an anonymous individual.

However, upon closer examination, Auden’s skillful use of irony and satire reveals a much deeper critique of modern society. The poem opens with a bureaucratic tone, reminiscent of a government report, as the speaker analyzes the life of the titular “unknown citizen.” Through a series of numbered paragraphs, the poem catalogues the various achievements and attributes of the citizen, ranging from his conformity to societal norms to his unquestioning obedience to authority.

Auden employs the technique of enumeration to highlight the absurdity of reducing a human life to a checklist of accomplishments. The citizen is portrayed as a model of compliance, fulfilling all the expectations imposed upon him by society. He pays his dues, holds a job, and consumes the prescribed goods and services. Yet, despite his apparent conformity, the citizen remains nameless and faceless, stripped of any individuality or agency. He is merely a statistic, a cog in the machinery of the state.

The poem’s title itself is laden with irony, as it underscores the paradox of being simultaneously celebrated and forgotten by society. The citizen is hailed as “unknown” precisely because he has blended so seamlessly into the collective consciousness, devoid of any distinguishing characteristics. His existence is reduced to a set of data points, devoid of meaning or significance beyond his utility to the state. In this way, Auden exposes the hollowness of societal accolades and the emptiness of superficial recognition.

One of the central themes of “The Unknown Citizen” is the tension between individuality and conformity. The citizen is praised for his adherence to societal norms, yet his conformity ultimately robs him of his humanity. He is described as “satisfied” and “normal,” words that carry connotations of mediocrity and complacency. In sacrificing his individuality for the sake of fitting in, the citizen becomes a mere cipher, indistinguishable from the masses.

Auden’s use of irony serves to underscore the absurdity of this conformity. The citizen is commended for his lack of “unrest,” implying that dissent or questioning of authority is undesirable. He is lauded for being “normal in every way,” a phrase that reveals the inherent bias towards uniformity in society. By conforming to societal expectations, the citizen forfeits his autonomy and becomes a passive recipient of the status quo.

Furthermore, the poem critiques the commodification of human life in a capitalist society. The citizen’s worth is measured not in terms of his character or integrity, but rather in his ability to consume and contribute to the economy. He is praised for his “good” insurance record and his “satisfactory” health, as if his value as a human being is contingent upon his economic productivity. This dehumanizing calculus reduces individuals to mere economic units, divorced from their intrinsic worth as human beings.

In the final stanza of the poem, Auden juxtaposes the citizen’s conformity with the chaos and violence of the outside world. The “social psychology” is contrasted with the “World War,” highlighting the dissonance between the sanitized image of societal order and the harsh realities of global conflict. The citizen’s conformity is portrayed as a form of complicity, a willful blindness to the injustices and inequalities that pervade society.

Ultimately, “The Unknown Citizen” serves as a cautionary tale against the dangers of conformity and complacency. Auden warns against the perils of sacrificing individuality for the sake of societal approval, urging readers to resist the pressures of conformity and assert their own unique identities. In a world that seeks to homogenize and standardize human experience, it is more important than ever to celebrate the richness and diversity of individual expression. As students of literature, it is our duty to heed Auden’s call and challenge the status quo, reclaiming our humanity in the face of conformity and conformity’s depersonalizing effects.

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An NPR editor who wrote a critical essay on the company has resigned after being suspended

FILE - The headquarters for National Public Radio (NPR) stands on North Capitol Street on April 15, 2013, in Washington. A National Public Radio editor who wrote an essay criticizing his employer for promoting liberal reviews resigned on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, a day after it was revealed that he had been suspended. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak, File)

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NEW YORK (AP) — A National Public Radio editor who wrote an essay criticizing his employer for promoting liberal views resigned on Wednesday, attacking NPR’s new CEO on the way out.

Uri Berliner, a senior editor on NPR’s business desk, posted his resignation letter on X, formerly Twitter, a day after it was revealed that he had been suspended for five days for violating company rules about outside work done without permission.

“I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems” written about in his essay, Berliner said in his resignation letter.

Katherine Maher, a former tech executive appointed in January as NPR’s chief executive, has been criticized by conservative activists for social media messages that disparaged former President Donald Trump. The messages predated her hiring at NPR.

NPR’s public relations chief said the organization does not comment on individual personnel matters.

The suspension and subsequent resignation highlight the delicate balance that many U.S. news organizations and their editorial employees face. On one hand, as journalists striving to produce unbiased news, they’re not supposed to comment on contentious public issues; on the other, many journalists consider it their duty to critique their own organizations’ approaches to journalism when needed.

In his essay , written for the online Free Press site, Berliner said NPR is dominated by liberals and no longer has an open-minded spirit. He traced the change to coverage of Trump’s presidency.

“There’s an unspoken consensus about the stories we should pursue and how they should be framed,” he wrote. “It’s frictionless — one story after another about instances of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad and the dire threat of Republican policies. It’s almost like an assembly line.”

He said he’d brought up his concerns internally and no changes had been made, making him “a visible wrong-thinker at a place I love.”

In the essay’s wake, NPR top editorial executive, Edith Chapin, said leadership strongly disagreed with Berliner’s assessment of the outlet’s journalism and the way it went about its work.

It’s not clear what Berliner was referring to when he talked about disparagement by Maher. In a lengthy memo to staff members last week, she wrote: “Asking a question about whether we’re living up to our mission should always be fair game: after all, journalism is nothing if not hard questions. Questioning whether our people are serving their mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful and demeaning.”

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo revealed some of Maher’s past tweets after the essay was published. In one tweet, dated January 2018, Maher wrote that “Donald Trump is a racist.” A post just before the 2020 election pictured her in a Biden campaign hat.

In response, an NPR spokeswoman said Maher, years before she joined the radio network, was exercising her right to express herself. She is not involved in editorial decisions at NPR, the network said.

The issue is an example of what can happen when business executives, instead of journalists, are appointed to roles overseeing news organizations: they find themselves scrutinized for signs of bias in ways they hadn’t been before. Recently, NBC Universal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde has been criticized for service on paid corporate boards.

Maher is the former head of the Wikimedia Foundation. NPR’s own story about the 40-year-old executive’s appointment in January noted that she “has never worked directly in journalism or at a news organization.”

In his resignation letter, Berliner said that he did not support any efforts to strip NPR of public funding. “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism,” he wrote.

David Bauder writes about media for The Associated Press. Follow him at http://twitter.com/dbauder