Tone Of The Unknown Citizen
Lost in the War
In the poem, “The Unknown Citizen,” a short eulogy is presented at a funeral for an unidentified soldier. When providing details about the citizens life, the speaker instead uses impersonal facts and government based statistics, rather than intimate components about who the soldier was personally. The author also displays the tone of the poem as lighthearted, making the speaker seem untroubled about the death of the soldier. In W.H Auden’s poem, “The Unknown Citizen,” the author uses his objective tone, statistical word choice, and eulogy structure to bring to light the lack of relationship between the government and its soldiers.
Auden portrays the speaker bestowing the eulogy at the citizens funeral as a government worker, …show more content…
In the poem, the author’s word choice established that the government thought of the soldier as irrelevant, leading the reader to conclude that soldiers lack importance to the government. In the poem it states, “He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be / One against whom there was no official complaint, /And all the reports on his conduct agree / That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint” (4-8). The impersonal word choice in the poem lacks details, referring to the soldier as a “saint” only by the means of his government records. The lack of personal facts in the eulogy prove the author’s point of government negligence towards its soldiers. Despite the statistics and facts on the soldier, the readers are never presented with personal details about his life. In the poem, the speaker announces, “He was married and added five children to the population, / Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation” (29-31). The soldier, merely described as a statistic, sacrificed himself for his country only to go without personal recognition at his funeral. The author uses a distant and unbothered word choice to send the overall message of the lack of interest between the government and the soldiers who fight for their
In the poem, “The Unknown Citizen,” a short eulogy is presented at a funeral for an unidentified soldier. When providing details about the citizens life, the speaker instead uses impersonal facts and government based statistics, rather than intimate components about who the soldier was personally. The author also displays the tone of the poem as lighthearted, making the speaker seem untroubled about the death of the soldier. In W.H Auden’s poem, “The Unknown Citizen,” the author uses his objective tone, statistical word choice, and eulogy structure to bring to light the lack of relationship between the government and its soldiers.
Auden portrays the speaker bestowing the eulogy at the citizens funeral as a government worker, …show more content…
In the poem, the author’s word choice established that the government thought of the soldier as irrelevant, leading the reader to conclude that soldiers lack importance to the government. In the poem it states, “He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be / One against whom there was no official complaint, /And all the reports on his conduct agree / That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint” (4-8). The impersonal word choice in the poem lacks details, referring to the soldier as a “saint” only by the means of his government records. The lack of personal facts in the eulogy prove the author’s point of government negligence towards its soldiers. Despite the statistics and facts on the soldier, the readers are never presented with personal details about his life. In the poem, the speaker announces, “He was married and added five children to the population, / Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation” (29-31). The soldier, merely described as a statistic, sacrificed himself for his country only to go without personal recognition at his funeral. The author uses a distant and unbothered word choice to send the overall message of the lack of interest between the government and the soldiers who fight for their