This is because this poem subtly promotes the idea that the cost of one’s eagerness to lead a conventional lifestyle is his or her ahistoricity (anonymousness). Therefore, there can be few doubts, as to the thoroughly humanistic sounding of The Unknown Citizen. However, the same willingness, on these people’s part, makes them less likely to leave a mark in history, while increasing their likelihood to be turned into a nameless ‘cannon meat’, during the time of war – just as it happened to Auden’s ‘unknown citizen’. This simply could not be otherwise, because nowadays, it is specifically people’s willingness to suppress their individuality, while leading thoroughly conventional lifestyles, which defines their chances of securing well-paid jobs and attaining a social prominence.

Hence, the philosophical implication of Auden’s poem – despite the fact that in today’s world people can well enjoy a number of life-comforts (due to their ability to afford buying technological gadgets), they nevertheless remain ‘anonymous, in the existentialist sense of this word. “Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard” (par. This is the reason why, even after having found out about the ‘unknown citizen’ just about everything they could, readers usually do not get closer to understanding what accounted for his actual individuality: Apparently, the author wanted to advance the idea that our possession of the statistical data about a particular deceased individual, does not provide us with an insight as to what were the qualitative aspects of his or her stance in life.

Nevertheless, after having read the poem, they begin to realize the actual rationale that prompted Auden to name his poetic masterpiece, in the way he did. He was married and added five children to the population” (Auden par.

The unknown citizen