Wh Auden The Unknown Citizen

Statistics do reveal to the true identity of a man. In “The Unknown Citizen,” W.H. Auden presents a Big Brother like state that knows everything about its citizens except for what really matters; this state views individuality as irrelevant and judges citizens based solely on their relation to society as a whole. The bureaucrat leaves out important emotional events involving the unknown citizen that seem vital to the judging of his character. Auden uses a speaker whose viewpoints contradict his own to present his argument regarding this issue. In a mild satirical tone, he is critiquing the state’s determination to define the meaning of a citizen’s life in just a few facts. He is suggesting that much more important information about a human …show more content…
Because the poem is actually a monument to a citizen, the speaker must address the citizen in order to recognize him. However, the speaker creates a curious tone when he addresses the citizen in the first word and throughout the poem using only open pronouns such as, “He.” Throughout the whole duration of the poem, the speaker talks about the citizen as though the citizen were a good little boy and the speaker an elementary school principal. The speaker informs us that the citizen “Satisfied his employers,” that public opinion analysts were “Content” his opinions were “Proper,” and that he “Never interfered” with his children's education. The speaker is clearly pleased with what he considers exemplary behavior on the part of the citizen, but the poem leads us to question the standards by which the citizen is being judged. The speaker continues to describe the citizen in strange ways when he says,” He was married and added five children to the population” instead of using a more traditional description such as he had five kids and raised a family. The level of diction is consistently formal and remote, almost computerized. This remoteness reveals that although the speaker seems to know many things about the citizen, he is missing personal elements that are important when judging