W.H. Auden’s allegorical poem, “The Unknown Citizen,” chronicles the life of an anonymous, average man who is ironically declared a saint by the government of his nation. Throughout the poem the main character of the poem is praised for acts of normalcy by various agencies and groups, most likely created by the State, that has thoroughly investigated into his life. The unknown citizen’s conformity and active participation in following the will of the State are glorified, and eventually, he passes
The Unknown Citizen In "The Unknown Citizen," Auden is implying that people are statistics and easily conformed to the normality of society. Throughout the poem, Auden portrays the character as being an all around normal citizen and "one against whom there was no official complaint." In lines 4 and 5, the speaker describes the character as a "saint" and "for in everything he did he served the Greater Community." He served in war, never got fired from his job, popular with his mates, and "normal
The Unknown Citizen Is Me “The Unknown Citizen”, a poem written by W.H. Auden, reflects a period of vast change in America’s history, making “The Unknown Citizen” an example of the government’s view of the perfect modern man in an overrated, unrealistic society. During the time period that this poem was written, in the late 1930’s, The United States was going through tremendous social, political and economic change. Following the passing of Black Monday and at the onset of The Great Depression
As a criticism to the western society’s view on a person’s life, “The Unknown Citizen” presents a normal and unremarkable person as an “unknown citizen” who has been honored with a poetic monument by the government about how little trouble he caused for anyone but served his duty to his nation. The speaker opens the this elegy style poem with an epigraph on a memorial to this unknown man who was simply known as “JS/07 M 378” The speaker criticizes the government’s determination to define the meaning
Exchanging Culture for Freedom “Was he free? Was he happy?” through various poems like “The Unknown Citizen,” English American poet and Pulitzer prize winner, W.H Auden, questions emotional satisfaction within one's identity. Desperation for independence assists motivation to question cultural behavior and leads to rejection of identity which damages relationships around them. It is in the face of a culture that Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel; namesake reveal internal struggles individuals face when the culture
The Unknown Citizen by W.H. Auden The Poem “The Unknown Citizen” by W.H. Auden is a satire. Its narrator is the state. In this, the state pays tribute and describes a successful and positive product of its efficiency and effectiveness. In other words, it builds the character later described to the reader as “the perfect citizen.” The narrator speaks as if he is delivering a speech or common tribute using words and phrases that are familiar to the reader. Using such imagery
The Unknown Citizen Written in 1939, “The Unknown Citizen” by W.H. Auden is a satiric epitaph for the individual man in a modern bureaucracy. The poem is addressed to “Js/07/m/378”, a social security like number, and an allusion to the national monuments for the unknown soldiers who died in battle. Similar to Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World or George Orwell’s 1984, the poem reflects upon the diminishing role of individuality in the modern state. Given the context Auden wrote in, with the rise
“The Unknown Citizen” “The Unknown Citizen” by W.H. Auden, is a commentary on government and the materialism of modern man. The poem is written in the form of an obituary inscribed on a monument built by the government in commemoration of an average, upstanding, and decent community member. Throughout the passage, the speaker lists facts about the citizen’s life which he believes prove that the deceased was a valuable person. In actuality these facts represent nothing more than the socially accepted
Analysis of The Unknown Citizen by W.H. Auden “The Unknown Citizen”, written by W.H. Auden during 1940, is a poem where the speaker, a representative of the state or government, directs a speech to the audience about a monument being erected for a citizen. Written in free verse, although using many couplets, this poem is a poem that describes the life of a certain person through his records and documents. This citizen is portrayed as a normal and average human being who is being honoured
The Unknown Citizen by W.H. Auden The poem that I am going to talk about is the Unknown Citizen by W.H Auden. I am going to talk about what I first glimpse in the poem but then after further study what you actually see. At the start of the poem under the title it has a serial
W. H. Auden poem, “Unknown Citizen” speaks of a man who does an outstanding job of being the perfect citizen. He is the poster child of a prisoner but he doesn’t seem to know it. He’s not mentally free. He could possibly believe so but he’s trapped. Trapped by his peers and what’s expected of him. He’s not living for himself but for the “Greater Community.” The citizen does everything for the Greater Community possible expected of him as a man. Auden however states “For in everything he did he
are view by society as momentarily confused in need of guidance to remain where they rank in class status. And those who indeed bend to the advances of norms that are acceptable may end up like the unknown citizen in Auden 's poem whose identity was forever lost by mass grouping with the another unknowns who never did anything special.
realization of the truth. “The Unknown Citizen,” a poem by W. H. Auden, is an almost tedious epitaph of a deceased man’s life, but the poem is unexpectedly profound in its purpose of causing the reader to evaluate his or her own meaning to society. Other works that touch on the same topic as Auden’s poem are the plays Mrs Warren’s Profession by Bernard Shaw and Endgame by Samuel Beckett, which both portray the cold way that society evaluates its members like “The Unknown Citizen” does. These two plays
In W. H. Auden’s poem the “The Unknown Citizen”, the words portray a perfect man in society. As someone reads the poem a person can easily visualize a depiction of exactly what the poem is titled, a citizen that is not known at a personal level. That is why someone needs to read between the lines to unearth significance, animosity, and purpose to the poem. The poem, “The Unknown Citizen”, has no true struggle as someone reads through the entirety in literal terms. Yet when a person stops to think
An Analysis of Citizen: An American Lyric It seems as if Claudia Rankine’s, Citizen: An American Lyric, is the artistic representation of the defining mood in this particular point in history as shown by widespread ideas and beliefs. When reading the book it is easy to think, “this is not really poetry”. Judges at the Book Critics Awards of 2014 declared that “It is not just poetry”. The sections of the book themselves are often categorized as essays, prose, stories, etc., in reviews by critics
“The Unknown Citizen,” a poem written by W.H. Auden, alludes to a time of great change in American history, where the poem is meant to mock the government’s viewpoint of the perfect role model for an unrealistic, impractical citizen. The author, W.H. Auden, writes and intends for the historical context of his poem to be in the late 1930’s, when America was going through the Great Depression. Citizens were losing a sense of nationalism for America and had begun to negatively view the government. During
The Central purpose of The Unknown Citizen, by W.H. Auden and Departmental, by Robert Frost is very similar. Both authors discuss modern society and how individuals’ lives are nothing when looking at the big picture of society. They would like people to understand what society has become. They both use a great deal of satire to convey their central purpose. They satirize the trends in modern life, and how society looks at different people. The authors are upset that society has forced people to conform
W.H. Auden’s, “Unknown Citizen”, portrays a dark satire that in reality forces a person to lose his/her individuality and become the product of a social assembly line. The main character conforms to society for approval instead of looking within himself for his own opinions. Auden wrote the poem in 1939, shortly after becoming a citizen of United States and escaping England. The poem relinquishes evidence of his cultural collision with American social norms and bureaucracy throught he use of symbolism
Night” is pessimistic. The darkness described in Poem 419 is a metaphor for uncertainty; this form of darkness is temporary. In line 7, the speaker highlights the “newness of the night”. “Newness” is a reference to the unknown represented by the night, as what is new to humans is unknown since they have not experienced it yet. Furthermore,
the end? Worse, what if the end isn’t what I thought it would be? All the times that I stumbled and fell and picked myself up and kept running, kept running with bruises and pain and a heart tinted with shadows of doubt, kept sprinting towards the unknown just as the earthworm does, that would all go to waste. And I would be left lost, irreparably broken by regret at the lifetime I wasted. It’s this fear that makes me weak and sucks out the will to go forward. I don’t know how close my dreams are.