Unknown Possibilities?

W.H. Auden’s poem The Unknown Citizen was written as an epitaph on the monument of a citizen who was identified as “JS/07 M 378”. The poem is satirically glorifying the “typical citizen” from the perspective of government organizations. Throughout his life, Auden held radically left political views. The Unknown Citizen is perhaps a reflection of his politics and beliefs that a government should do more to ensure the happiness and well being of its citizens instead of functioning as an impersonal, purely rational entity. The piece also alludes to possibilities about the true quality of life about the unknown citizen.

The poem states that there was no “official” complaint against this man. The word “official” implies that he was never arrested or in any sort of legal trouble. Auden purposely uses the word for those connotations to show that the government that is glorifying this man has no idea if his friends or family had any troubles with him or cares for him. In his work in the factory whereby he “satisfied” his employers, he was unexceptional and likely mediocre. He did nothing to distinguish himself because he did not kowtow to his employers (he was not a scab) and he was not excessively loyal to his union though he paid his dues (he was not odd in his views). The mention of his career shows a glorification of mediocrity. Since he is not unemployed or destitute, he is not using government services or any of the public coffers to make ends meet. His lower to middle class status also signifies that he did not have enough money or power to have any profound affect on the world around him. Therefore, his existence was “neutral”. He did not make the world any better or any worse.

His “popularity with his mates” really says very little about his social status. We do not know how many friends he had, if he had healthy, fulfilling relationships with them, or if they were morally reprehensible people. Since he liked to drink, he could have been an alcoholic drowning his sorrows in substance abuse. His buying a paper every day, having normal reactions to advertisements, and holding the proper political opinions shows that he was easily manipulated by the press (in this case, likely a tool of government) and did not form his own interpretations of the world around him in spite of being informed of current events. He was the perfect citizen of a powerful government because he did not try to resist the status quo in any way that we know of.

The final two lines sarcastically reveal how material possessions (“everything necessary to the modern man”) and being a good citizen do not ensure individual happiness. In terms of his freedom, it is unclear whether or not the unknown citizen is living a life that he chose for himself. We do not know if he had any desire to ascend beyond mediocrity and achieve greatness. Circumstances, poverty, or an oppressive government could have prevented him from living in a manner that he found most suitable.

The government that he was living under only wanted to ensure that he maintained a healthy degree of patriotism and did not cause any trouble. The unknown citizen never did anything to distinguish himself from the masses and the speaker of the poem implies that such behavior made him the ideal citizen. The speaker implies that the unknown citizen had no hopes and dreams beyond being an average member of the populace. If he had any other plans for his future, the poem implies that carrying them out would not have been possible because he was suffocatingly bound to the values of society. Had he been living in a society where discovering individual happiness was valued, he could have created a life for himself that would have been better than average. (645)