How Does Auden Use Satire In The Unknown Citizen

Use the guided analysis exercises within the lesson as a model for this part of the assignment.

1. Locate an example of satire. Copy and paste it here, making sure to note the source where you found it in a proper citation.

The poem states, “When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,” which means that many followed what he did. It was just the energy that was within him that allowed for this to happen and the public to follow his orders. Because of Auden’s use of the words senator and tyrant together, we may assume that this is based off of Ancient Rome and the reign of Caesar. Before the stabbings that occurred and the final blow of Brutus, Caesar was the most loved person in Rome. Everyone bowed before his power because they were in fear of what they could do to them or how a tyrant could propel a regular citizen to

A satire is a piece of work that is designed to ridicule or tease a group or organization, generally for the purpose of being humorous. “The Importance of Being Earnest,” a play by Oscar Wilde, is a satire, ridiculing class, gender, and marriage. This essay will describe some points from each of these sections, as well as give a brief synopsis of the play these examples come from.

Imagine living in a society where everything someone does is conforming to someone else. In the novella Anthem, written by Ayn Rand, the author talks about conformity by referring to how all men need to be alike and fit in with each other. Equality 7-2521 the street sweeper, believes in the feeling of individualism and rejects the collectivist society around him. Social conformity becomes dangerous in Anthem because while Equality 7-2521 follows all the rules at the beginning of the novella, throughout the book he begins to break them.

It is clear that there is a resistant and rebellious theme of the poem, that tells the truth about human problems. This is made clear by the writer saying, “but who do you see in the mirror when there’s only yourself and you. Who really knows the truth of the fascist, that lives inside of you.” So, majority, if not all of the poem does not relate to the traditional stereotype and forces the readers to look beyond the

Conformity, known as working in unison with authorities serves an essential role in making the global community function through policies and set of laws that are regulated upon a vast population. John F. Kennedy, an American politician sheds a different light on conformity than what it is commonly understood as through his famous quote, "Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth." This quote reveals the increasing control conformity has taken on one's mind, promoting the importance of being accepted by others rather than accepting one's own individual personality and capabilities. In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury demonstrates conformity as a mask that hides one from the raw inner soul, abolishing one's freedom to think

The author describes this citizen as being an overall regular man in society, who did not change or impact the world by any means. He was a normal man who bought a paper every day

Conformity has been the target of many works of literature even before Holden Caulfield from Catcher in the Rye spewed angst about everyone around him being a “phony.” To many people, there are forces in the social order that shape others to fit a certain mold, and one who does not fit the mold will be considered an outcast by society. During the 1960’s, rebellion was a shared act among the majority, including authors and artists; this was due to the conflict in the East as well as the Civil Rights movement. To these people, the government was a criminal, even a machine perhaps, which threatened one’s individuality. This provides some historical context on the background of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Ken Kesey, the author, worked in

During the Age of Enlightenment, people began believing in and relying upon rational thought instead of religious dogma to explain the world. This newfound emphasis on rationality promoted a breadth of freedom in speech that was previously unknown, a fact which was utilized by philosophers such as John Locke, Rousseau, and Sir Isaac Newton. In addition, the Age of Enlightenment produced famous writers who didn’t agree with the irrational politics and old traditions of their respective countries, and instead relied upon wit and satire to expose the corruption and poor human condition existing around them. These Enlightenment writers use irony in their satires to get their interpretations regarding the human condition across.

The point of the poem was to deliver the horrors of war to the public

Part of the absurdity of civilized society that Twain depicts is that society's accepted rules

Was he happy?”. He follows this up with a satirical answer, “The question is absurd: Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard”. This is a joke on the state. Auden is showing that the state knew nothing about this man. All they know is that he did not complain. Auden is showing that modern life is all about just going through the motions and conformity. People can be heroes if they just follow the mold that the government has set forth. This is what Auden is upset about. This man that just went along with everything, he followed and conformed to what the state desired. He was not free; he was “normal in every way”. The only way that the state can judge this man is by statistics, they have no idea if he was happy or believed in what he was doing. They know that he was very normal, he was conventional. The poem satirizes how the government is using statistics to judge weather someone is a hero or not. Everything he did was morally acceptable, and that is why he is a hero.

In fact, there are many critics who believe that this poem was Auden’s own epitaph on Hitler- a personal ode to the man who had wielded such power in the years of his dictatorship and played no small role in shaping the world as we know it today and they had known it then.

Auden presents an allegory in The Unknown Citizen that begins even before the poem itself. The phrase “Unknown Citizen” appears only once—in the title. This term is an immediate allusion to and parody of the “Unknown Soldier,” especially considering the details of who the poem is dedicated to and the fact that it is found on a marble monument, much like those one might expect to see in Washington, D.C. where the United States is home to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The “Unknown Solider” is a soldier who cannot be recognized after being found in battle. This sometimes-controversial idea can be interpreted to mean that many people die as unknowns because they lived uninfluential lives. Aside from this large allegory, the poem uses only a few rhetorical devices. In line four, for example, “…in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint” is quite an exaggeration because being “one against whom there was no official complaint” is hardly saintly (2). Another