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BA English Literature
[2nd Year, 3rd Semester]
British Literature
“The Unknown Citizen” W.H. Auden
About Poet:
Wystan Hugh Auden was born on February 21, 1907, York, Yorkshire, England—and died on September 29, 1973, Vienna, Austria. Most of his verse dramas of this period were written in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood.
In 1928, his collection Poems was privately printed.
In his Collected Shorter Poems Auden divides his career into four periods. The first extends from 1927, when he was still an undergraduate, through The Orators of 1932. The “charade” Paid on Both Sides, which along with Poems established Auden’s reputation in 1930
The second period, 1933–38, is that in which Auden was the hero of the left. Continuing the analysis of the evils of capitalist society, he also warned of the rise of totalitarianism. In On This Island (1937; in Britain, Look, Stranger!, 1936) his verse became more open in texture and accessible to a larger public.
In 1939 moved to the United States, where he met his lover, Chester Kallman, and became an American citizen.
In the third period, 1939–46, Auden became an American citizen and underwent decisive changes in his religious and intellectual perspective. Another Time (1940) contains some of his best songs and topical verse.
The fourth period began in 1948, when Auden established the pattern of leaving New York City each year to spend the months from April to October in Europe. In The Shield of Achilles (1955), Homage to Clio (1960), About the House (1965), and City Without Walls (1969) are sequences of poems.
W. H. Auden served as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1954 to 1973.
About Poem:
"The Unknown Citizen" was written by the British poet W.H. Auden, not long after he moved to America in 1939. The poem was first published on January 6, 1940 in The New Yorker, and first appeared in book form in Auden's collection Another Time.
W.H. Auden describes this poem, through the form of a dystopian report, the life of an unknown man. 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.
The Unknown Citizen is a single stanza of 29 lines, most of them long and hardly able to carry the full rhymes that form part of an unusual rhyme scheme: ababa ddeffgge hh ii jkkj ljlnnnoo
Poem :
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.
Summary:
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. So it is the "Bureau of Statistics" that offers the dead man the high praise that "there was no official complaint" against him. In other words, he never did anything to upset the system. There was no particular praise of him either; he was considered good just because he never did anything wrong.
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 well-liked by his friends, social enough to be normal, and dedicated to his work. The man served the “Community” for his entire life.
In fact, he spent his whole life “serv[ing] the Greater Community.” Capitalization is utilized throughout the poem to acknowledge bodies, or official groups that exist in the world of the poem. The citizen served the community up until the day he died. The only exception was when he went to fight in the “War.”
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.
The man did not have any “odd views” and he always paid his “union dues.” He was on time with payments and was not strange in any way. That is to say, he did not believe in, or participate in anything, that went against the tenants of this dystopian feeling world.
The speaker also states that the man buy a newspaper every day and read it. He reached to the advertisements normally. It is hard to know who this person truly was with these purely surface-level details.
He had good health and although he went to the hospital once, he came out quite cured. He was sufficiently healthy. The citizen consumed all the latest technologies on an installment basis, as a “Modern Man” should, and owned the proper devices which is 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. The man’s personal life consisted of a normal wife, and “five children” that were “added…to the population.” The number was not too many or too few, it was just “right” for a man of his “generation.”
The final lines of the piece bring greater attention to the absurdity of the poem’s premise. 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. The only way for an individual to survive in a regimented society is to conform, obey and live in perpetual mental slavery. Such a modern man is a slave to the routine, is incapable of understanding such concepts as freedom and happiness.
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