SO, this poem was given to me by a friend (who has been leaving comments- thanks!) and I promised him I would read it and if I liked it I would put it up. I read it, I liked it and up it went.
The Unknown Citizen by W. H. Auden
He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a
saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in a hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.
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1 comment:
This poem is about a monument to a man that lived in a utopian future. The monument lists several details of his life but omits the man's name (in the first two three lines of the poem, here omitted, he is given the designation "JS/07 M 378.") The government has records on his behavior, and notes with approval that he obeyed the State at all times; all details of his life were in accordance with the State's proscriptions, right down to his opinions. He however has no identity (the poem is called "The Unknown Citizen;" his whole life is recorded, except for his name.) The last line is of course the point of the poem - the State gives no consideration to whether or not he was happy or free. They find the very question absurd, because they knew everything else about the man's life - of course the reason they don't know is because they never asked.
The poem is about the increasing control that governments take in the lives of their citizens - all in the effort to improve society. Individual citizens increasingly lose control over their own lives.
I also like the idea of taking a monument, which is something you build in memory of somebody extraordinary, and building it in memory of an ordinary citizen.
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