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The odd man out [By: Iman Nelson]

The dictionary meaning of a citizen as deemed by Webster’s is as follows, a

native or naturalized member of a state or nation who owes allegiance to its government.

Despite the previously stated denotation, the often spoken meaning could just be an

“everyday man”. Someone who lives their life, has a job, and has a repeating schedule

day after day. These so called everyday men could be ubiquitously around the globe, or

maybe they do not exist. It is very possible that this is not another representation for the

literal, but perhaps a visual of what people see inside themselves. The poem “The

Unknown Citizen”, By: W. H. Auden supports this theory. In Auden’s poem reveals an

ironic portrayal of an unknown citizen, a citizen who represents the average man and his

lack of personal identity within modern society. Taking life out of establishments as well

as gratification on the part of the community is to blame for the lack of individualism.

The poem appears to protest against a world in which systems interested in data &

technology fail to capture the human quality of life, and mass organizations and

commercial use attempt to obliterate originality within humankind.

It can be assumed that the unknown citizen is happy, but it may be too much of an

assumption to realize the alternative that within such a system, questions that demand a

subjective response, for instance, that he was not. The stanza including the phrase, “Was

he happy?” becomes irrelevant. Happiness, here, is naturally assumed, for, as a citizen,

the individual has achieved complete and downright “normalcy,” and in Auden’s

figurative civilization, being “average” is equated with being happy.

Another poem that can be analyzed in the same fashion is, “Much Madness Is

Divinest Sense”, By: Emily Dickinson. She has a pattern within her writing style as she
The odd man out [By: Iman Nelson]

often speaks of darkness, death, depression, or lonesomeness. Many of her poems were

revised not to offend the public audiences. In that case, it would’ve been a bit more

difficult trying to understand what type of meaning she was trying to send out. It was

more than forty years before her original poems were handed over to the United States

Library of Congress, where they were thoroughly scrutinized and Dickinson’s original

versions were returned. The only editing that was done for the later publications was to

assign location numbers to each full piece as well as to every poem fragment. “Much

Madness” was given the number 435. The poem seems very simple because of the short

stature. However, within its eight lines is hidden a universal theme that runs so deep that

more than a hundred years later its significance is still fresh, its impact is still sharp, and

its expressed emotion is still controversial. Dickinson poem had the ability to make the

reader to “realize their soul” and shows disagreement with the “going along with the

crowd” is correct.

The utmost irony of Auden’s poem is that in many ways the readers is the

“unknown citizen”, for whether they realize it or not, our lives are largely shaped and

dictated by the great social, political, and economic forces that seek to establish

conformity to the attitudes and beliefs that they produce. Dickinson’s poem shows how

people should break away from their possible fate as an “unknown citizen”, and if being

average is sane, she states that she would rather be mad and divine. Dickinson’s poem is

still honored today for that message (i.e. Robert Hass, former United States poet laureate,

chose to read it to President and Mrs. Clinton at a commemorative meeting in the White

House in 1998.)

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