Inspiring Ideas for Curious Minds

Analyzing the Poem “The Unknown Citizen”

W. H. Auden, in his poem ‘The Unknown Citizen’, exposes the modern situation where a person loses his/her individual identity and is rendered a mere cog in the state-machine. This obituary of an unknown state “hero” is apparently prepared by a state official but what the poet suggests and what the reader reads between the lines attribute to the irony in the poem.