The Unknown Citizen

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As a criticism to the western society’s view on a person’s life, “The Unknown Citizen” presents a normal and unremarkable person as an “unknown citizen” who has been honored with a poetic monument by the government about how little trouble he caused for anyone but served his duty to his nation. The speaker opens the this elegy style poem with an epigraph on a memorial to this unknown man who was simply known as “JS/07 M 378” The speaker criticizes the government’s determination to define the meaning of a citizen’s life in just a few facts collected by technology lists as the speaker goes through the reasons that this citizen is worthy of the title: the unknown citizen. This knowledge is made possible by the “Bureau of Statistics” use of modern …show more content…

These patterns help emphasize the dry humor because the different lines create detailed list of public yet random information collected about the person. The first 5 lines do not have a particular rhyme scheme but it shows that this person “was a saint” from the state’s perspective and other records, having “served the Greater Community” with his contributions. The following create a picture of this man and uses positive diction through words like “normal”, “right”, and “proper” to indicate ways that make him this ideal man of …show more content…

In the couplet that connects “the day he retired” and “never got fired,” it shows that the man was hardworking and punctual as he showed up to work every day for the majority of his life. The next rhyming couplet with “every day” and “every way” show how he was fully assimilated into society because he had the same preferences and reactions to the daily news and advertisements like most people His health records is created by a rhyming couplet with “insured” and “cured” that indicates that he went to the hospital once and was cured of his problem. Though, it was not much of a financial burden on him because the man had insurance. The next rhyming couplet with “installment plan” and “man” creates his consumer’s record as he often bought on credit and paid his installment payments. This man had a quality lifestyle as he owned all of the modern conveniences: “a gramophone, a radio, a car, and frigidaire” married with five children. The parallel sentence structure with “ When there was peace…” showed how he served the government’s desires to either be in peacetime or fight for his country when it was needed. Another rhyming couplet with “generation” and “education” emphasized his “ideal” married life with having the perfect number of 5 children to the population. Like most parents, the teachers described him as making sure that his children received a proper education without his interference to one day become like every

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