W. H. Auden’s “The Unknown Citizen” as a Satirical Poem.

W. H. Auden, (1907-1973) , a major poet of the modern period ,is typically modern in his choice of subject, technique and articulation. Like T.S. Eliot he represents the dreadful picture of a modern spiritual ice-age in his poetry in his perspectives of history, theology and philosophy. Using the desolate and rocky background of Post-War Europe of 1930’s he delineates the rise of dictatorship, the exploitation of the poor and under privileged, economic disparity, spiritual bankruptcy, anxiety and boredom of modern life. Thus his real subject for Poetry is man and his day-to-day activity, and nature is merely cinematic setting for that activity.It is quite an anti-romantic approach to life and sometimes tragic in vision.

Auden  in his poems often introspects the human element engaged in human activity.And  his men often do stand amidst the bleak atmosphere of modern society. The Unknown Citizen is such a story of modern man who finds himself nowhere and leads a life of anonymity . The ironic title attacks the very snobbery of our social identity mischievously polarized by economic, commercial and ideological pressure groups. Read More Poetry The entire poem and its language looks like a compilation of detailed facts about the average man written in the flat matter of fact tone of a report. The overall aim of this scheme is to promote experimentation and innovation of our identity, and to complement in diverse ways the goals spelt out in the individuality and freedom for creating environmental consciousness and related behavioural practices among citizens of this world.

This poem, right through it appears, is attacking the concept of a human being who is not much more than the product of all the economic, commercial and ideological pressure groups which force him to conform to a standard pattern of life and thought. The unknown citizen is everyman who is controlled by the conventions of bureaucracy and the welfare state which ignore the individual freedom of a citizen. The unknown citizen is known by his number  JS/07/M/378 ,not by his name. His personae is obscured by the mechanized social behaviour. Only but few annals are stored: He was an obedient worker at Fudge Motors Inc. he had union membership and did not work against the wishes of his employers. Read More Poetry He owned a car, a phonograph, a radio, a Frigidaire and maintains installment plans. He was in touch with all reports and news published in the newspaper. All these impose a uniformity in his behaviour and activities which seem to be dull and monotonous. Any personal variation are immediately spotted by social psychology workers or other bureaucratic corrective mechanisms of Government.

The firms like Producers Research and High Grade living declares that the man was fully sensible to the advantages of the installment plan. Here Auden satirizes the commercial process or exploitation which almost destroy a modern man. The firms carry out investigations to find out the likes and dislikes of the consumers to promote the sale of their goods like car, phonograph, radio, Frigidaire etc. Auden protests against the society which manipulates man by the laws of mass organization, commercial exploitation, social research and spying system. Read More Poetry  This kind of criticism of the killing of individuals freedom and happiness came, and still comes from the very different view points. The novels of D.H. Lawrence, exposed the effect of modern society on man’s emotional life. Auden was very much influenced by D. H. Lawrence. Moreover, as a left-wing thinker Auden makes bitter attacks not on mass organization of society but on the capitalist exploitation of that society of course in some lines of the poem he shows his divergence from a left-wing analysis:

                “But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc,

                Yet he wasn’t scab or odd in his views.

                For his union reports that he paid his dues,

                Our report on his union shows it was sound”.

The poem shows how the average people is pressed into conformism by some evil social forces. Of course, there is often the antagonism and conflict between these social forces. Apart from the obvious conflicts of labour and capital, there are the population problem as indicated in the High Grade Living and the proper size of the family suggested by the Eugenists. What Auden, therefore, means to say is that modern man has lost his identify in this society. They are turned into mere number where the identification mark is not the personality.

So, each line of the poem is ironical. There is total regimentation in modern industrial society in which a man is reduced to a mere sum number. He losses all individuality and simply conforms to a pattern, any violation of which is regarded as eccentricity. Though some critics are of the opinion that as in the post 1918 period the possibility of a satisfactory Trade Unionist or a happy collaboration of capital and labour is fabulous. Auden’s view is false. They state a question; “How did an unknown citizen manage to avoid the repercussion of the General Strike of 1926 or the economic crisis of the thirties – when three and three quarter millions in Britain were unemployed by 1932?”

Of course, the poem can still serve as a warning against the social pressure of our mass-society. Using the style of Rilke (Auden shared with Rilke a concern with the relation of the individual sensibility to the external world and also an aesthetic and symbolist dimension) he here uses the contemporary social landscape and geography as symbolical of human condition and the human psyche. Read More Poetry  Auden whose topography is always political, economic or psychological in this poem uses all his tools in a satirical way in Swiftian model.

Ardhendu De 

Reference: 1.The Winged Word  Ed. by David Green ( Macmillan)                   

2.Auden and Rilke by Richard Anthony York University of Ulster.