The Unknown Citizen Essay, Research Paper
The twentieth Century witnessed the rise of patriotism. Government started to warrant many of its actions, impossible earlier, as for the good of the state. The authorities played a deeper function in people s personal life, examining and analyzing every minute item in hunt for any disloyal offense. Persons who met the authorities s criterions were lauded as theoretical account and loyal citizens. Those who did non, such as those in the Red Scare of 1950s, were ostracized. This alarmed a coevals of authors who wrote to protest this new society. W. H. Auden was among one of these authors. In his verse form The Unknown Citizen, through the usage of sarcasm, allusion, tone and word pick, the writer expressed his concerns for society that sat passively while its authorities became more powerful and impersonal, curtailing personal freedom and felicity.
The talker of The Unknown Citizen is a faceless authorities functionary, who is associating a study of a adult male & # 8217 ; s life to person who asked if the adult male was happy and free. The verse form carries a voice of really dry tone, sometimes become irony. The talker describes the adult male as a theoretical account citizen who in a modern sense of an antique word is a saint. When asked if the adult male was free and happy, the talker responds that the inquiry is absurd, had anything been incorrect he should surely has heard. The sarcasm of the state of affairs is that the very action of examining into the adult male s personal life by the functionary that is absurd. The assurance of the functionary that he has known everything about the adult male s life is a false 1. The sarcasm is that the functionary has no cognition about the adult male s life. All he knows are dry facts. He does non cognize the private feelings of the adult male. And it is the private feelings of that adult male that determine whether he was happy or non.
Beneath the usage of dry tone, the writer employs word pick to raise certain intended intension about the authorities and the citizen. The words such as normal, and proper, are used to depict the citizen & # 8217 ; s properties as the research workers have found them to be ; he is besides said to hold had the & # 8220 ; right figure & # 8221 ; of kids for his coevals. In contrast, those who would be opposite to the citizen are described utilizing strikebreaker and odd. These word picks are meant to turn the reader against the authorities, which so offhandedly dictates what is normal and proper and right and what is non. Intellectually, the usage of normal and proper bring up a mindless society of drones, unable to believe for themselves or move in any manner other than they
have been programmed for. The emotional intensions of strikebreaker are acrimonious, as a strikebreaker scabiess and is frequently picked at. The intension of the words Auden chooses for his verse form highlight the government’s over controlling nature. At the same clip, Auden employs words to develop the passivity of the unreflective citizen: no official ailment, the Greater Community, normal in every manner, the proper sentiments for the clip of the twelvemonth. Using these word picks, Auden non merely assail the citizen but modern society overall. Modern society, on its surface, advocates freedom of address and look. Yet, beneath punishes people, either psychologically, socially, or physically for the free look of certain thoughts. Merely certain proper sentiments are allowed for the clip of the twelvemonth. If it was peace clip, it was expected that a adult male was for peace, and if there was war, he went. Much of this is due to the oppressive nature of the authorities, nevertheless, the citizen has picks excessively. He could hold protest, registries official ailment or complains in private and seeking to make something about the complain. Yet, to Auden s discouragement, the citizen remains normal in everyway.
To beef up his subject, Auden besides employs allusions to familiar characteristics of current authorities and society to increase the reader & # 8217 ; s designation with those in the verse form. An allusion to the United States is made from the phrase & # 8220 ; Fudge Motors, Inc. & # 8221 ; on line 8, which owns mills. The word Ford could easy be substituted for Fudge. Ford is one of the icons of America, stand foring the success of free market and capitalist economy. In contrast, Auden besides refers to communism through his allusion of a Greater Community. The adult male is said to hold served the Greater Community in everything he did. This apposition of communism and capitalist economy, two apparently incompatible systems since communism allow no private ownership while capitalist economy depends on it and the proprietor s greed, strengthens the subject by doing them cosmopolitan to all authorities, non any peculiar one.
The Unknown Citizen is an onslaught by Auden on the authorities that restrict freedom and felicity from it citizens and at the same clip, a review on modern society that remains inactive in the face of of all time turning authorities invasion. He employs literary devices such as enunciation, dry tone, and allusion to heighten his message to the reader. Finally, through the inquiry of was he free? happy? , Auden is inquiring us if that is the destiny we want: a statistical Unknown Citizen, complex, troubled individual lost in an detached universe controlled by intrusive authorities?
