Category: The Unknown Citizen

Nowadays when I ask my students about the meaning of the term “irony,” smarty pants students quip me that the word “irony” is an adjectival form of the noun “iron!” Clever is the wit, of course; however, even in that joke, one can also see how “irony” could mean something “chewy” as it means a twisted double-meaning, ranging from a bitter sarcasm to a mild parody, all poking fun at the current status of things. While holding a cute baby, one can say, “Why, you are so ugly! Yes, you are!” only to mean how pretty the baby really is. Irony contains such twisted layers of meaning in a single expression: the denotation (what is actually said) and the connotation (what is meant) are different. Masterful in his use of such irony, Auden loads his poem “The Unknown Citizen” with biting, bitter, sarcastic, and accusatory double meaning—to poke fun at the automaton-like modern existence of human beings without any sense of freedom or individuality. The poem is a satire on the “programmed” existence of a modern factory worker.

Irony in the Careful Depiction of the Unknown Citizen

To intensify the irony found throughout the poem, the speaker of the poem is very judicious and careful in the depiction of this unknown factory worker, just another nameless face in modern world. This unknown citizen is depicted as having never been fired, which translates, in the total context of the pervasive irony, he did not have a spine to stand up for his rights. Such conformity, common among the “programmed automatons” in today’s society, is further strengthened by the facts that he was a due-paying union member, he was popular with his drinking buddies, he subscribed a daily newspaper, he was a law-abiding citizen, and he owned a “phonograph, a radio, a car and a Frigidaire,” just like the rest of the population. Yet nobody knows his name; rather, he is known by only, say, his social security number: “To JS/07/M/378/.” He is a truly unknown citizen. To obliterate any hint of his individual identity, he does not have an address that anchors him to a specific locality. Although the speaker tells us he was married, we do not know who his wife was, let alone his children. Now then why or who would erect a marble monument for such nameless faces in the crowd? What is the point? Why would “the State” erect a monument to memorialize the death of this automaton who did not own an opinion: “When there was peace, he was for peace; when there was war, he went.” Such conformity pokes fun at modern existence, lacking individuality and freedom. He is a conformist, an unthinking robot, no one will ever miss even if he gets run over by a car. Why then should “the State erect This Marble Monument” for him? In that biting sarcasm lies the satiric irony.

Irony Through Impersonalization

The speaker of the poem further robs any sense of individuality in the unknown citizen by carefully blurring any particularity in his description; in fact, he has never been allowed to speak anything for himself as all the depictions about him have been rendered by an observer, possibly a federal or state agent, looking at bureaucratic records or reports. In fact, “He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be,” and not by his family or his friends. The deliberate use of a passive voice in the above sentence further accentuates the passivity of this man that lacks any individuality: there is nothing particular about this nameless face in the crowd. Furthermore, he was not found by a police or even a government agent; rather, he was found by the Bureau of Statistics—to intensify the fact that he was just another number, and not a breathing human being. Such impersonalization further distances this nameless face in the crowd into obscurity. The speaker of the poem then obfuscates the individuality of this unknown man by calling him not by his name but by “One,” a mere impersonal pronoun, a John Doe, whom nobody knows or cares to know. In fact, he goes onto describe the citizen as “ . . . in the modern sense of the old-fashioned word, he was a saint. . . that served the Greater Community.” Such archaic use of the word “saint” creates a distance from reality, suggesting that this guy belongs to the past. Such quaint words, such as “saint” and “the Greater Community,” have no real meaning, a mere bombastic blast for this nameless Joe Sixpack that removes him further from being a real human with flesh and blood. Such careful dehumanization further intensifies the circumstantial irony.

Verbal Irony through Overbearing Capitalization

Even the correct capitalization in “Fudge Motors Inc.,” sounds, well, “fudge” ; for example, Oxford English Dictionary defines that the word “fudge” means “inarticulate expression of indignant disgust” first used by Oliver Goldsmith in 1766 (See Reference 1). Perhaps the best modern literal translation in American English could be “Horse-Crap Motors Inc,.” By intentionally capitalizing common words that should not be capitalized, the speaker of the poem punctures the true meaning of these words, making them sound empty, meaningless, sarcastic, and ironic: “the Greater Community,” “Union,” “Social Psychology,” “Producers Research,” “High Grade Living,” “Public Opinion” and “Eugenist.” They all sound so pompous, formal, arrogant, and bureaucratic, thus accentuating the fact these public agencies are far more important than any individual humans for whom they had been originally designed to serve. Rather, it is now we, the human ants, who must serve these offices, instead. In short, the irony is how we humans have been enslaved by these public or government agencies that were supposed to serve us.

Irony through Condescending Tone

On the surface, the speaker of the poem appears to celebrate and memorialize the death of this automaton-like factory worker—with a good measure of sincerity. Now that is the meaning on the surface. The real meaning is hidden in the irony. Like a government-programmed unthinking and thoughtless android, the unknown citizen has never stood up for his own rights as he lacked spine: “. . . he held proper opinions for the time of year,” “. . . our Eugenist says [five children he added] was the right number for a parent of his generation,” and he never bothered his children’s education—“And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.” The ironic tone here is condescending, if not disdainful: all his personal and private actions were “approved by the government or its public agencies.” The real meaning is, “What a moron this guy really was!” Think about for a minute: what kind of society are we living in if we must get approval from the government for every personal action we take? The unknown citizen has lived under a police state, watched by the Big Brother, deprived of individual freedom imprisoned as though in Huxlean Brave New World. Finally, the speaker of the poem then questions the sanity of such dead society with cut-throat sarcasm: “Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: / Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.” The adverb “certainly” in the last line brings the condescending tone to its height. Note that the last sentence is rendered in a passive voice to heighten the passivity of this android, the unknown citizen. The irony here is biting and harsh and unsettling and memorable—a reason why most people remember Auden by this brilliant yet sarcastic poem.

‘The Unknown Citizen’ begins with a prefatory dedication which identifies this ‘unknown citizen’ only by a number (which roughly follows the structure of US social security numbers). Auden’s dedication suggests the poem was written to be inscribed on a marble monument to this ‘unknown citizen’, but of course, such a monument is fictional (as is the ‘Bureau of Statistics’ in the poem’s opening line). His ‘unknown citizen’ is being memorialised because of his remarkable averageness.

What is Auden saying with this fake eulogy for the most average of Joes? He’s making a satirical point, and this point is apparent right from that dedication at the start of the poem. This ‘Unknown Citizen’ has no name: like the narrator of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s 1923 dystopian novel We, he is known only by a number, the number that this fictional Bureau of Statistics uses to identify him. As Patrick McGoohan – playing ‘Number 6’ in the 1960s cult drama The Prisoner – would later protest: ‘I am not a number! I am a free man!’

And this is Auden’s point: in the imagined (future) world of ‘The Unknown Citizen’, people have lost all trace of individuality or personal identity: averageness and conformity are the ideal, and people are just numbers on a file or record somewhere rather than individuals with thoughts, feelings, fears, and aspirations of their own. How ‘free’ they are is a matter of doubt: the State (back to that rather Orwellian ‘Bureau of Statistics’) has this unknown citizen on file, even though he has apparently committed no crime, and much is known about the life and habits of this decidedly ordinary man, implying state surveillance and monitoring.

There are ‘reports on his conduct’, his Trade ‘Union reports that he paid his dues’, and in turn, the State’s own ‘report on his Union shows it was sound’. As so often in his poetry, Auden seems almost prophetic: here, in foreseeing the rise of Big Data, social media networks selling our information, and tech companies tracking our digital footprint so they eventually seem to know more about our habits, and our likes and dislikes, than we even do ourselves.

Then there is the broader idea of ‘freedom’ and the role social conditioning plays in restricting our behaviour, because we want to conform, we want to ‘get on’ in life, we want other people’s approval.

He has all the mod cons that a person of his generation in the West is expected to have (a record player, a radio, a car, and a fridge), and socialised with his ‘mates’, dutifully bought a paper every day to keep informed (so say the Press, who have also been watching him), and responded to advertisements appropriately, suggesting a pliable and impressionable consumer. (The newspaper reference does the same thing: think how many times the role of the media in influencing public opinion, especially around Brexit in the UK in the run-up to the 2016 referendum, is discussed.)

Obviously there’s something sinister in all of this, but what Auden manages so deftly here – and in doing so, reminds us of why he was such a master of tone and poetic voice – is the dystopian writer’s trick of presenting all of this in such a cool, ‘official’ manner that it strikes us as more unsettling. The ‘voice’ of the poem (we can’t really call them a speaker or narrator, and perhaps we cannot even call them a ‘them’) is that of an official government report.

This obviously chimes with the idea of the public memorial (such as the inscription on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior), but it also enacts the creeping encroachment of the state into people’s private lives, making them public affairs. The fact that the ‘researchers into Public Opinion’ even know, or profess to know, which opinions this Unknown Citizen held at certain times of the year tells us that we are not a million miles away from the world of ‘thoughtcrime’ that Orwell would help to put at the centre of dystopian writing. But Orwell is following Auden rather than the other way around: Nineteen Eighty-Four would be published ten years after Auden wrote ‘The Unknown Citizen’ (although the idea of ‘thoughtcrime’ and the ‘thought police’, and indeed the terms, predate Orwell: they first appeared in 1934 in a book about Japan).

Another way of putting this is to argue that tone is central to the effectiveness of ‘The Unknown Citizen’: if Auden had written a poem from his own perspective, or in his own personal ‘voice’ using the lyric ‘I’, to lament this worrying level of state surveillance, he would have risked coming across as too much of a political poet, a poet who is very obviously trying to make a point in a not particularly sophisticated manner. As Auden’s response to the death of W. B. Yeats, written in the same year as ‘The Unknown Citizen’, demonstrates, he was wary of poetry being used as a mere political tool to ‘make things happen’. The adoption of a flat, bureaucratic state ‘voice’ – a faceless voice, and an impersonal one – gives the poem a dark humour, even while Auden clearly is making a point with the poem.

This adoption of a fictional voice to pay ‘tribute’ to the fictional unknown citizen reaches its most delicious apogee in the poem’s final couplet: this impersonal administrative voice of the government dismisses the question of whether the unknown citizen was ‘free’ or ‘happy’ as absurd. The final line, ‘Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard’, is sinister in its implication (that nothing about this model citizen’s life was unknown to those who monitored him so closely) but also wonderfully sardonic, even ironic, because it reveals the failure of emotional empathy and imagination the state suffers from: they cannot conceive of anything that cannot be reported on, recorded, or gathered as data.

The two related texts that I have chosen includes, W.H Auden’s, ‘Unknown Citizen’ and James Mcteigue’s ‘V for Vendetta’. McTeigue’s representation of an oppressed society effectively resonates with George Orwell’s ‘1984’, hence my decision to choose it as my prominent text. Through its exhibition of characterisation of protagonists, their appeals for self expression, and the strive for the collective individuality, reflects the environment Winston lives in. ‘V for Vendetta’ succinctly conveys these ideas through skillful use of setting and character interaction and highlights the inconsistencies, anomalies and paradoxes within human behaviour. The three texts interrelate with one another through the connection of human experiences and relations I have made when being challenged to the ideologies of individualism and totalitarianism.

McTeigue’s ‘V for Vendetta’ film purposefully displays vivid relational ideas and experiences that resembles Orwell’s ‘1984’. V, the protagonist, is a direct representation of Winston as their motives include that of overthrowing an oppressive government who is in control. In ‘1984’, Smith impulsively iterates and writes in his journal. This exemplifies his internal conflict in which he chooses to conceal as a result of fear, exerted upon himself through the presence of Big Brother. The fear of death or torture can be seen in both texts as the society is filled with this manipulation and use of twisted mind-control. Because of Winston’s proclivity to internally oppose the power, this creates anticipation towards the audience as to wonder about the possibilities are if he continues to commit thoughtcrime. Winston constantly thinks rebellious thoughts, “they’ll shoot me I don’t care, they’ll shoot me in the back of the neck I don’t care,” as well as repeating the words, “Down with Big Brother”, unveils his hatred against this totalitarian society. The insightful use of anadiplosis conveyed through, “I don’t care” represents his misery and despair within the setting of a totalitarian regime. I had chosen ‘V for Vendetta’ as my favoured text for the extended response due to its higher relations I could make with ‘1984’ and similarities seen in the film and novel.

Within ‘V for Vendetta’, the protagonist, V is represented as the forefront who represents the strive for freedom and the embodiment of rebellion. The mask symbolises individuality in a sense that V is differentiable from the indoctrinated crowd. Because of the salience associated with the symbolism of the mask the effective representation of V, it engages the reader to involve themselves in his personal motives which provides particular effect amongst his encounters with other characters. “Behind this mask, there is more than just flesh. Beneath this mask, there is an idea… and ideas are bulletproof.”, represents ideologies and that people may have thought of but by being covered by a facade on igniting that change. As humans, we experience fear of what people will say and act upon if we open our mouths. We fear the opinions of others when we should be reflecting on the benefit of ourselves. The ideas we think of can help change the perception of a better society. “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.” The strategic tonality and delivery from V, exerts his modality and confidence of his perspective signifying an act of defiance against the totalitarian power. Through the ideas of the mask creates deep understanding and connection towards those who have similar ideas.

‘The Unknown Citizen” written by Auden displays the story as bureaucratic and depressing. It takes similarities from Orwell’s ‘1984’ but lacks a sense of empathy. The man in the poem can be described as a reference to a number rather than a human creating the dehumanised nature. Although it displays similar traits to Winston Smith in ’1984’, it lacks the changing effect Winston had when he started writing in his journal. While reading the poem I was anxious and confused about the emotion the character was portraying, “Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd,” is asked by the poet and leaves a wonder of thought and uncertainty. Having not known the situation of the man’s state is an idea of hiding the truth and morality of one’s identity. The use of rhetorical questions advocates the wondering pathways set towards the audience. However, in 1984, we are given the point of view of Smith and told in third person but through the perception of an individual narrator. We see the use of the third person to develop a relationship between the narrative and Winston, the main character. “It might be two or three hours ago that they had brought him here. The dull pain in his belly never went away, but sometimes it grew better and sometimes worse, and his thoughts expanded or contracted accordingly.” creates a visual imagery of the torture that he is going through compared to the uncertainty of emotions that is lacked within “The Unknown Citizen”. It questions me about how the character experiences his daily actions. “Our Social Psychology workers found that he was popular with his mates and liked a drink” through this we don’t directly create a connection with the character instead get told a fact. My experience with the emotional support from the poem is insufficient although the human behaviours of “drinking with his mates” creates a connection of developing relationships with other people.

In Auden’s poem, the character of the unknown man is similar to Winston in ‘1984’ where they are employed as people who work for the government and creates a relation to both characters. The effect of creating character build up and development allows any human relations and similarities that they can relate to. In “The Unknown Citizen” it displays a character description of what the man does on daily activities but is written in a bland but well structured format.

The use of rhyme creates rhythm and flow for the reader as engagement and a beat of interest. However, Auden uses lengthy lines in the poem and can cause disengagement for the reader. But through the use of the long lines can create a comedic sense, “One against whom there was no official complaint,…. that, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned world, he was a saint,” the use of the rhyming couplets can bring harmony, resonance and grace swayed throughout the poem and brings connection to the plot of the story. In ‘1984’ it’s not pursued as poetic and rather as a three act structure which involves the conflicts at the beginning and resolution by the end of the story. The three act structure allows the audience to experience Winston’s journey of dehumanisation, creating that empathy and tension we can gain and parallel from ‘Act 1’, ‘Act 2’ and ‘Act 3’. ‘V for Vendetta’ is visualised through a three act structure and follows that ploy structure of ‘1984’ which creates a better link and desire for myself to choose that text.

The two texts chosen, the film ‘V for Vendetta’ directed by James McTeigue and W.H Auden’s poem ‘The Unknown Citizen’ communicated the ideas that are seen in George Orwell’s dystopia world in the ‘1984’ novel. Through the ideas of individual thought and one’s well being on security and self reflection, the film ‘V for Vendetta’ had displayed an array of ideologies that one can relate and exhibit. Though the text I chose to reject, ‘The Unknown Citizen’ displayed similar themes, it lacked the connection of the character to build that human relation emotion I felt compared to the film. The three texts create a succinct and powerful message on ideologies of individuals within the society and the human experience of challenging one’s perception on it.