“The Unknown Citizen” by W.H. Auden is a poem that satirizes societal normalcy and the reductive tactics of bureaucracies with in a derisive tone.
Setting the Tone
The poem begins with an epigraph, serving simultaneously as an epitaph, which sets the tone for the poem:
(To JS/07 M 378
This Marble Monument
Is Erected by the State)
Instead of naming “The Unknown Citizen” the “Monument” reduces the departed to a combination of letters and numbers. The poem then proposes a series of other methods that the “Bureau of Statistics” agrees to be significant (line 1). The speaker of the poem is most likely the State itself because of its superficial expounding on nearly every facet of the “Unknown Citizen’s” life and Auden’s use of pronouns such as “our” (lines 12, 13, 23).
Satisfactory Superficiality
The poem proceeds down the page with a variant rhyme scheme that playfully pokes fun at the serious undercurrents of the different “reports” (line 3). “JS/07 M 378” “served the Greater Community” (line 6), “worked in a factory and never got fired” (line 8), and “his Union reports that he paid his dues” (line 11). On the surface the aforementioned criteria for gauging a human being’s productivity is valid and satisfactory, but something is missing.
Institutional Anti-Idiosyncracy
“JS/07 M 378” is externally analyzed not just by his “Union”, but also by the “Social Psychology workers” (line 13), the “Press” (line 15), “Producers Research and High-Grade Living” (line 19), and “researchers into Public Opinion” (line 23). These analysts all agree that “JS/07 M 378” was “normal in every way” (16). “JS/07 M 378” always “held the proper opinions for the time of year” (line 24). The “importance” of the litany of analysts is emphasized by the capitalization of the first letter in each of the words which gives these institutions an ironically human effect. Despite the “importance” of the institutions they are unable to determine the name of the citizen. Why does the man remain nameless if so much information has been gathered, assessed, analyzed, documented, and released?
A Mode of Modernism
This poem was first published in The New Yorker on January 9, 1940 and the artistic movement of the Modernists was in full-swing. Georg Simmel summed up Modernism as “the deepest problems of modern life derive[d] from the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy and individuality of his existence in the face of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of external culture, and of the technique of life”. Arguably, this is exactly what Auden is commenting on with his poem that pins the individual against the State.
The Absurdity of Happiness and Freedom
The final two lines of the poem, “Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: / Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard” (lines 31-32). It is in these two lines that the most profound statement of the work is made. The reader is forced to question what happiness is, what freedom is, and whether or not “JS/07 M 378” was either. Each of the previous dimensions, analyses, and observations made about the citizen were measurable, but happiness and freedom are not able to be defined by statistics. “JS/07 M 378” followed every standard of Western societal norms: steady career, impartial perspective, earned income, agreeable behavior, standard opinion, advocated education (or “never interfered”) (line 29).
The question that arises is one of conformity. If one does everything one is supposed to then what are they but a puppet being danced about by Big Brother. What makes a human being? What is a human being? A series of statistics, numbers, and letters?
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