Every literary work holds an endless number of exploratory possibilities. Inasmuch as it does, it offers opportunities for numerous discoveries. The students who are constantly making discoveries, who are constantly finding out for themselves what is in the work rather than being told what is there, are the students who will come back looking for more. After all, the purpose behind a literature program should be to arouse and implant interest in the human condition, to redefine sensibilities, to alert people to the artistry involved, to cause them to consider man in the universal sense, and to expose them to the finest expressions of the cumulative wisdom of civilized society.
These goals are not easily attainable and surely not within reach in two or three years of high school. To suggest that they are is foolish. To try to accomplish them is absurd. Yet we do this. We try to cram, push, stuff, and force-feed literary art into people as if we were handling so many cans of baby food. We try to win instant devotees and to develop overnight critics, forgetting that the hard work of analysis is something better left to maturer minds and to the accumulation of many, many experiences, even many years of them. Isn't it far better to try to hook youngsters for just a few years, to get them involved, interested, to give them a taste of what is good and to send them out of high school looking for more of the same? Isn't it better to have them wondering if there is more available somewhere else? Ideally, students should leave high school in this frame of mind. Realistically, they leave wondering if they are ever going to have to take any more "of that crap." There have been better names for literature, to be sure, but few have been devised by students. It seems as if someone would have to work awfully hard to stimulate such a horrible student reaction. Still, we have the evidence. Many teachers have apparently worked hard and, unfortunately, have succeeded. Now I simply contend that the inquiry approach will eliminate this antagonism and that it will do much more. Students will leave school remembering, not the names of heroes or the titles of a dozen stories or the names of characters who seem to fit nowhere. They will leave remembering that they had met many people who encountered many problems which they either overcame or didn't. They will leave remembering the triumphs and the tragedies, moments of glory, despair, bliss, embarrassment, pride, jealousy. They will leave remembering that somewhere else either in some other school or in some other book another human being is considering another problem and that his predicament is probably worth looking in on. And because the student has been there before, he will want to be there again. That's what I feel the inquiry approach will do.
I want students to reach out for special terms only when there is a real need, a motivational interest. Terms acquired this way become learned, understood, not memorized. They become truly a means to greater understanding of a work, not an end in themselves. They fit in as an integral part of a complete work, not as isolated and unconnected bits of knowledge. If a student's approach to literature begins this way in high school, it will continue beyond high school, and the student will grow into a critic of sorts, for he will be constantly facing new literary experiences in an inquisitive way. This is the real critic, the person who constantly wonders, not the fellow who provides you with neatly packaged explanations telling you in five or ten paragraphs what the work is all about. People have been enjoying great literature for years without the benefit of the critics, the paragraph packagers, that is, and they will do so for years to come, as long as they have questions to ask. Asking, probing, wondering, discovering--this is one of the finest kinds of criticism. And this is the inquiry method applied to literature.
Carrying on fruitful literary discussions that elicit responses is a difficult thing to do with adolescents, I must admit, but such discussions are crucial to hooking them on reading. Eliciting response is the heart of the problem, so it is where teachers must begin.
Teachers need to design questions that lead the students to enjoying and understanding not only the story (or poem) itself but also questions that help them relate personally to the work being read and discussed. The reading of literature, after all, is a study of life, the life of people. If literature teaches truth of some sort, as it often does, that will be fine, but truth is still incidental to a proper study of the human condition. In literature we read about various dimensions of man (woman) and the human condition whenever we care to look, and as often as we look closely, then so often will we be more likely to find one more condition. The possibilities are endless and unpredictable, but that is what is so thrilling about literature. The thrill and excitement, however, never arise if the questions posed do not probe the minds and hearts of readers, helping them realize that they and their problems are not historically unique. They need to find out where they stand with others, with those they love and those who love them. In short, they need to learn where they fit in "the immense design of things" and literature teaches that. Very simply, by discussing stories and poems, listening and responding to the responses of peers, they begin to understand that they are not alone in their joys, sorrows, and passions.
For the past few years I have pursued what I call an inquiry approach to studying literature. For my purposes, the inquiry method in teaching literature is a process in which one aims to involve the students by prompting them, through literature, to examine their feelings and emotions in an effort to understand and appreciate the order and meaning of their own existence.
Any kind of literature--junior or adult--which moves students to think and to question, which leads them beyond the point of "What does the work in question mean?" to "What does it mean to me?" has within it the possibilities of assisting them through the awesome, tremendous task of facing up to themselves in their own world. An inquiry approach, if properly employed by the teacher, deals with a work of literature in the form of questions about that work and not in the form of pre-conceived, teacher-imposed answers. For too long teachers have failed to realize that the question is more enlightening than the answer.
Teachers must hit students where they are and "induct" them into an intuitive process of inquiry that explores the passions of love, hate, joy, sorrow, prejudice or whatever. They must help them kick these passions around and involve them in the intellectual experience of self discovery.
Students at any grade or ability level, I feel, are capable of a certain amount of intellectualization, which begins in uninhibited talk--talk that helps them probe and interpret their own humanity, talk that helps them test their own perceptions and delight in their own insights--no matter how shallow or meager.
Inherent, then, in the inquiry approach to literature is the method by which students learn to confront their own convictions and weigh their commitments and from which they develop confidence in themselves and in their ability to communicate the innumerable thoughts and feelings and ideas that emerge, converge, and diverge, once they leave the classroom and enter the immediate world of their reality.
The literature classroom is the most logical forum for students to explore, communicate, and test their feelings, their anxieties, and their questions, because it is there that they commune with those ideas that can move them to discover they are human beings and not chairs.
With these thoughts in mind, then, I would like to refer to you a poem, "The Unknown Citizen" by W.H. Auden¹, which I see used quite commonly by secondary teachers in Southern California, but I suspect everywhere. Following the poem, I have included an interpretation, my answer as to its meaning, if you wish. More importantly than that, however, I have added a series of interpretive questions about the poem that I think will provoke stimulating responses as to the meaning of the poem itself as well as some questions that tune the students into themselves, helping them relate the poem's meaning to experiences and happenings in their own lives. I call these intellectual questions.
The questions, I feel, lead students in one way or another to an acceptable interpretation of the poem, but they will more than likely lead beyond the interpretation into who knows what or where. The point is that the questions will lead the students to discover for themselves, via the spirit of inquiry and response, a satisfactory interpretation of the poem. You be the judge as to whether or not response-oriented questions lead to and even beyond the teacher interpretation of meaning and provide for student involvement and enjoyment at the same time. If so, then you may be ready to join me in proclaiming that the question is indeed more enlightening than the answer.
AN INTERPRETATION
From its very title there is an overriding sense of irony and an air of uncertainty about Auden's poem. The irony, of course, relates to the use of the term "unknown citizen" in contrast with the traditional "unknown soldier" appellation. The irony deepens when the acts of courage which the unknown soldier symbolize are contrasted with the singularly non-distinguished life of the unknown citizen. The uncertainty is contained in the cryptic dedication of the poem, "to JS/07/M/378." Is this a man with the initials J.S., born in 1907, male, and including the last three digits of his social security number?
The poem is a eulogy, of sorts, describing the life of an apparently average, and therefore unknown, citizen. According to what is told about him, there was apparently nothing extraordinary about his life: he was a retired factory worker who served in the war, married, with five children. More important than this data, however, is the perspective from which, the manner in which, additional information is conveyed. A great deal of the information on this individual, for example, appears to be gleaned from various governmental agencies or institutional sources in some futuristic society: "He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be one against whom there was no official complaint" is certainly an ominous beginning for a poem, with its Orwellian overtones. In addition, we are told that he served the "Greater Community"; that he possessed a Health Card which contained his medical history; that the Social Psychology workers found him to be popular; that a "report" on his labor union found it to be sound, etc. Additional reports on various aspects of the "unknown" citizen's life are reported by teachers, Public Opinion researchers, a Eugenist, and two agencies known as Producers Research and High Grade Living, which seem to specialize in keeping track of individual consumer patterns of citizens.
Again, it is difficult to ignore the irony here: with information from so many governmental and quasi-governmental agencies, there is little--on the surface, at least--that isn't known about the unknown citizen. As a matter of fact, so complete does this futuristic society deem its data on its citizens to be, that the questions, "Was he free? Was he happy?" are academic, for if he was not, there surely would be some record of it in the mass of data they had accumulated on the man.
Finally, Auden's poem seems to be commenting on the failure of our institutions (and, by extension, the people who run them) both public and private to grasp the essence of what it is to be human. Despite our technological advances, and our preoccupation with gathering and analyzing data (even if we invade people's private space in so doing), we have failed to come to grips with the essence of ourselves, the heart and soul of mankind. All the inferences which may be drawn from all the data in the world can't tell us what gives a person inner strength, or why people laugh, or what grief is. Only they can tell us that.
Questions for "The Unknown Citizen"
Creative entry to the poem: A day or so before taking up the poem, give students numbers by which they will be recognized and acknowledged in the class.
Interpreting the Poem
What does "JS/O7/M/37811 mean? Why does the unknown citizen have a number? Who gave him a number?
Did the unknown citizen have everything necessary to modern man?
In what way did the unknown citizen serve the greater community? Who did he serve?
Describe an unknown citizen in your life. How does your description compare with the description in the poem?
Was the unknown citizen free? Happy? Why is it absurd to ask those questions?
Was there anything wrong with the life of the unknown citizen? If anything had been wrong, would the unknown citizen have been heard from?
Because there wasn't any official complaint against the unknown citizen, does that make him a saint? Why does the narrator in the poem call him a saint?
Why wasn't the unknown citizen odd in his views? If he had been odd in his views, would he have been popular with his mates?
In what way was the unknown citizen's reactions to advertisements normal?
What were the proper opinions that the unknown citizen held? Where did he get his proper opinions?
Why did the unknown citizen go to war if he was for peace?
Why didn't the unknown citizen interfere with his children's education? Should he have interfered?
Describe the unknown citizen in one word?
Is Auden being serious in this poem or is there a hidden meaning--maybe a meaning opposite from what is stated?
What is irony?
Some personal involvement (intellectual) questions
The unknown citizen had a number. What numbers govern your life? How would you like to exchange your name for a number permanently?
Do you like the unknown citizen? Would you like to become like him? Could you become an unknown citizen? What can you do to prevent becoming one?
The unknown citizen had everything necessary to modern man? What do you think is necessary for modern man? What is necessary for you? Are these things necessary or are your reactions to advertisements as normal as the unknown citizen's?
The unknown citizen held the proper opinion for the time of year. Do you think he changed his opinion to suit the occasion? Why would he do this? Do you do this?
The unknown citizen wasn't odd in his views. Do you think that your views are odd compared to that person? Do you like people who have views you consider odd? How do you decide if a person's views are odd? Do you think people should change their views that you consider odd? How do you try to change the odd views of another?
Creative exit from the poem? Ask a few students, individually,
to appear before the class to plead permission that their number be changed back to their name?
The class will accept or reject the request as they see fit.
¹Archivist's Note: The poem is not included in the original Spring 1984 English Notes, but it is available online at Vers Libre.