Uc Poem Extract Analysis

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• Tone: satirical, sarcastic, lighthearted feel which is in contrast to very serious subject matter. • This poem is a satirical social criticism. • At the time Auden is writing, there was a deep fear of the kind of life that we are living in having every single aspect of our lives recorded. It was a period of fear of control by the government. • He is scared of loss of identity, individuality, freedom – basic human rights. • In the poem, he is parodying the Unknown Soldier. o The Unknown Citizen is being praised for doing all the things that society has asked him to do; for having no freedom, having lack of creativity, having no individual thought. o He just accepts everything society tells him to do. We see this everywhere in the poem how he never did anything or questioned anything; just did as he was told. • This is a society that wants absolute power/ control over every aspect in the citizen’s life. • The capital letters show that they have spared no expense in erecting these monuments. They have done this in order to inspire others to be conformist so that they can get a monument just like that. • The person is not given a name because if they give him a name then they’re giving the person too much independence and an identity and they don’t want that. He is given a statistical sequence (as seen under the title) rather than a name. The statistical sequence is JS/07/M/378 so this way, the society can still track him down and see what he is doing without giving him an
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