“Richard Cory” and “The Unknown Citizen” are both powerful and unique presentations of the fact that what appears on the outside isn’t necessarily the truth. Robinson’s short poem discusses one specific person’s suicide from the view of a common laborer, while Auden’s longer poem focuses on the life of an unknown citizen from the point of view of a government official. The common theme of the mental and/or emotional truth being hidden from the public eye may be compared on the basis of the gentleman’s characterization, point of view, and ironic outcome.
Both Richard Cory and the Unknown Citizen suppress their emotions, however both are characterized differently. Robinson identifies Richard as “admirably schooled in every grace,” “a gentleman from sole to crown,” and “human when he talked”. This completely juxtaposes what the reader infers is going on inside Richard’s head after reading the end of the poem. In addition to these characteristics juxtaposing Richard’s supposed mental chaos, the latter opposes Robinson’s characterization of Richard as “quietly arrayed,” which also lends itself to the reader’s interpretation that he is suppressing his true emotions – an assumed factor in Richard’s suicide. In contrast to Cory’s pristine appearance, Auden characterizes the Unknown Citizen as “one against whom there was no official complaint,” “[working] in a factory and never [getting] fired,” and “popular with his mates and liked a drink”. This characterization of the Unknown Citizen differs from Richard Cory’s characterization because the Unknown Citizen is portrayed as a worker in a commonplace factory – not rich or “admirably schooled”. In fact, Auden’s characterization of the Unknown Citizen could be an opposite of Richard Cory, when based on certain aspects of their lifestyles. Therefore, the characterizations of Richard Cory and the Unknown Citizen are different even though they both suppress their emotions.
Robinson and Auden both had the theme of masked emotions in mind when writing his poem, but each took a different viewpoint when portraying this theme. It is clear to the reader that Robinson wrote “Richard Cory” from the point of view of a commonplace factory worker because of his stating “so on we worked and waited for the light, and went without the meat, and cursed the bread”. This outlook, however obvious it may seem, provides the poem with a unique twist as to the ordinary idea of having the poem be from the troubled protagonist himself. Keeping the same secondhand view, Auden wrote The Unknown Citizen from an outsider’s perspective: the bureaucrat’s commemoration of said unknown citizen. This rare and unthought-of mindset provides the reader with a poem of sophisticated vocabulary full of words to look up in the dictionary, for those that aren’t familiar with such vernacular such as “Producers Research”, “High-Grade Living”, and references to an “Installment Plan”. Therefore, although Robinson and Auden share a theme, each had a different viewpoint in mind when writing his poem.
Even with some differences, such as characterization and point of view, both Robinson and Auden had the same idea in mind when it came to the protagonist’s ironic fate – suicide. Robinson’s poem “Richard Cory” is mainly a lesser’s description of how noble Richard Cory is, how perfect his life is, and why he’s held so highly in this community. However, an entire three stanzas worth of work is proved mistaken as the main character “went home and put a bullet through his head”, which causes the reader to question Richard Cory’s true emotional and/or mental stability. Similarly, Auden wrote “The Unknown Citizen” as a bureaucrat reviewing this unknown citizen’s life to compose a commemoration for a monument stating “Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard”. This line sticks up a red flag in the reader’s mind as though the government isn’t telling the full truth and that maybe there were a few mental and/or emotional issues with this ‘unknown citizen’ to cause his suicide. Therefore, both Robinson and Auden used the same ironic ending to his protagonist’s life in each of his poems.
To conclude, Both Robinson and Auden wrote a poem with the common theme that whatever shows on the outside isn’t necessarily the truth. However, each of the poems were different in their viewpoint and characterization of the protagonist – one being a man of high social rank, the other being one of common rank with a standard lifestyle. Therefore, each poem presents the same overall idea: mental and/or emotional truth can easily be lied about and hidden from the public eye.