The Unknown Citizen

“The Unknown Citizen” is written in the style of an elegy, a poem with the intent to memorialize the dead. It begins with a three-line epitaph to the titular citizen known only as “JS/07 M 378,” who is later identified as male. An epitaph is a text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, and the unknown citizen’s “monument / is erected by the State,” whose words about the dead man are mainly a catalog of generic attributes, showing nothing of his specific character or his passions. The quality of his welfare is assessed only by the government’s criteria of what might make a man “free […] [or] happy” (Line 28). To them, his ability to not stand out in any exceptional way is worthy of praise. To the governmental body known as the State, the unknown citizen is merely an identification number, his individuality completely obliterated. The rhetorical questions at the end of the poem, along with the response, are intended to be ironic. The poem can be read as having a sinister tone, with the lock-step ideas of the government in the poem equating to the fascist movements and totalitarian regimes evident in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Germany at the time in the context of World War II.

The State feels the citizen deserves to be lauded because of his ability to blend into a homogenous culture, a fact that has been studied and catalogued by the State’s agencies. The dead man is “one against whom there was no official complaint” (Line 2) and whose actions always “served the Greater Community” (Line 5). Further, the State believes he had “reactions to advertisements [that] were normal” (Line 15), was not “odd in his views” (Line 9), and held “proper opinions for the time of year” (Lines 23). Here, normality, lack of oddity, and propriety are conflated with correct and ideal behavior, behavior that is never deviant or revolutionary. The citizen’s ability to assert his individuality has been erased, either by the life he lived, or after the fact within the State’s assessment. Either scenario serves the State’s functionality. They can assess the man to be “in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word […] a saint” (Line 4), someone they can encourage others to emulate.

The poem is voiced by the official first-person collective point of the view of the State, which is unreliable despite its surety. Its credibility is undercut by the over-emphasis on the State’s suppression of other aspects of the unknown citizen’s world. The reader learns from the “Social Psychology workers” (Line 12) that the man was “popular with his mates and liked a drink” (Line 13). From the “Eugenist” the reader learns he had a wife and produced the “right number” (Line 26) of offspring. While these facts seemingly shows the man’s ability to live up to the expectations of the State, they also make the reader question what his life was like with his friends, wife, and “five children” (Line 25). What individual traits or anecdotes might they relay? By silencing them, the State actually highlights their absence, making one wonder about the true life of the citizen.

To the State, the individual, and those who surround him, is less important than the entities created to govern the populace. These bureaucracies are given final word as experts. The “Bureau of Statistics” (Line 1) gathers information to measure the citizen’s worth by what he does—or does not do. His employer, “Fudge Motors Inc.” (Line 8) notes he worked steadily and “wasn’t a scab” (Line 9). His “Union […] [that was] sound” (Line 10) confirms he paid his fees. “The Press” (Line 14) notes his daily newspaper purchase. “Producers Research and High-Grade Living” (Line 18) report on his sensibility regarding his payment plans and purchase of conveniences. The State’s “researchers into Public Opinion” (Line 22) assure that the citizen went along with what was expected of him whether during peacetime or at “war” (Line 24). Institutionally, the man measures up only as a cog in the machine.

However, when the essential questions regarding the man’s humanity are asked—“Was he free? Was he happy?” (Line 28)—the State cannot answer. It dismisses the question with a quick comeback of “[h]ad anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard” (Line 29). This suggests not only their ignorance to the individual’s well-rounded life—he is little more than a passive caricature to the State—but also implies that complaints about lack of freedom and/or unhappiness would have been stamped out had they been heard. In other words, the tribute to “the unknown citizen,” seemingly lauding his conformity, also has an unspoken warning that it is necessary to follow that conformity. In this way, the State confesses that the surveillance of the individual is necessary to the continuance of its functioning. Individual feelings and rights cannot matter in this new regime.