The Unknown Citizen By W.H Auden Summary BBS 2nd year English Vision

Wystan Hugh Auden was an Anglo-American poet born and raised in a heavily industrial section of northern England. He was born in 1907 and died in 1973.

The poem exposes how a person in a modern age loses his identity and becomes an unknown citizen. Modern society is like a huge machine that has its own systems to run with the fast pacing time and a person has to live following certain rules and regulations of the machine like society. Although he is a human, he has no time to fulfill his human feelings to serve his humanity. Therefore, this poem shows how we humans have to live like a machine.

The 'unknown citizen' is an ironical portrayal of a modern man in this modernized machine like world. The poet describes the life of an unknown man through a dystopian report.

This poem  addresses a marble monument of a person who died of war and his funeral and monument was made by the state. While he was alive, no official complaints were made against him according to the bureau of statistic. Reports shows that he was the perfect citizen who served his community well. He had a saint like persona. He worked in the same factory fudge motors Inc till he retired and never got fired as all his employers were satisfied with his professionalism. He had a normal outlook on life and politics and he also contributed to the trade union, but never participated in strikes. 

The psychology institution established that he had good relations with his friends and was quite likeable and popular and he used to hangout with his friends drinking and having fun. 

According to the official media, he bought a paper regularly to keep up with news and reacted to advertisement very normally. He had a proper insurance and was admitted to hospital once but left it cured. 

He approved of the state's vision and the public opinion department asserts that he always held the right view on big issues. when there was peace he was for peace and when there was war he was for war.

He knew how to live in a modern society and had everything necessary for a modern man, like a car, a telephone, a fridge and a radio. He was married with 5 children, which was a right number of kids to have at his time. He never interfered with their education nor ever questioned their teachers. It is almost absurd to ask if he was happy, if he was free because a modern man has lost his freedom as he is bound to obey the rules of the society like a machine. His wishes and desires hold value in this chaotic world. Therefore, the poem is a satire to the so called modernity and modern lifestyle of humans which brings nothing but loneliness and sadness.

Another question to be raised is, what did the state do for him? He was a good citizen who followed all the rules and regulations and always served the greater community, the state. He was kind, likeable and did everything in his power to served his state. He had no criminal records, no official complaints were insured and lived like a modern man and even dedicated his life fighting for the state and yet all that the state provided him was a monument with a code, JS/07 M378. The state couldn't even find his real name. So, there is a loss of identity. Even though he dedicated his precious life to his state, the state didn't even recognize him. The state couldn't fulfill their responsibility to such people. Hence a man is rendered as the state showed no respect to him, they left him unknown and unidentified which seems to be the destiny of the modern man.

The poem is a satire written in praise of a dead man who lived a life that the government deemed to be exemplary. He never deviated from the society's standards and expectations. On the one hand, the poem implicitly critiques the standardization of modern life, where people loose the sight of what it means to be an individual as they focus exclusively on the same status symbol and markers of achievement like having the right job, right number of kids, the right car, etc. and on the other hand, the poem shows a world ruled by total conformity and states oppression in which bureaucrats government dictates and spies on its citizens daily life.