Candidate 8675-309. My global issue is depictions of suffering in literature. I'll be looking
at two different works of work in translation: "Torture," a poem written by Wislawa Szmborska,
originally in Polish and a work originally written in English, Lincoln the Bardo, a novel
by George Saunders, specifically an extract on page 191. In torture, a poem written in 1986,
Szmborska depicts suffering with a focus on the vulnerability of the human body to physical pain,
bringing out ideas of timelessness, universality, and the inevitability
of pain. She does this through the form the poem takes, a technique called ironic precision,
and repetition both within stanzas and between stanzas. I'll look first at the form of the poem.
The form is free verse and the free verse form allows the Szymborska freedom.
She's not tied to any particular rhyme scheme or any kind of syllabication. She
has constructed a poem that has five different stanzas and she uses two techniques that are
unique, or that are common, to her poetry, repetition and list making. I'll examine these
in detail a little bit later but first i want to talk about the first line of each stanza which is
nothing has changed nothing has changed so this impacts the reader with an idea of
of um of timelessness this happens again in the second stanza um i'll just read the first several
lines nothing has changed the body trembles as it trembled before and after the founding of rome in
the 20th century before and after christ so the focus is on on the body on the physical
experiences that that the body has and time goes all the way back before the founding of rome
i'm going to move on now to talk about a technique for which
for which zomborshka was awarded the nobel prize it's a technique called ironic precision and the
precision ironic precision in this poem acts to break the body into its constituent parts and
almost use a clinical language so i will discuss that how that happens in the in the first stanza
the body is described as having thin skin with blood right beneath teeth and nails bones joints
extensible so in this way the body has been broken into fragments which can act to distance
the body from the reader however the the irony comes into play when this act of distancing
actually makes uh makes makes it seem more powerful and we we feel that when we get to
that last line of the first stanza in torture all this is taken into account so this resonates with
the title the title of the poem is torture so now by the end of the first stanza the
reader understands that the focus of this poem is going to be torture and pain and in a way that is
both timeless but also universal because everyone has a body finally i'm going to talk about
list making and repetition as i stated earlier the form of this poem allows
zamborska the freedom to vary her line lengths at which she does quite frequently and i'm going
to move to the to the end of the poem uh with the and discuss the last two stanzas and you
can see in these stanzas that once again the first line of the stanza is nothing has changed
but now there's another element of repetition added and that the second line starts with the
word accept nothing has changed except maybe manners in the penultimate stanza
and in the final stanza nothing has changed except the courses of rivers
she also uses list making in both of these stanzas talking about the body at the end
of the fourth stanza bowled over it falls draws on its knees bruises swells drools and bleeds
the result of this list making is to
further develop the issue or the theme of the human vulnerability to to pain
and then finally in the last stanza among these landscapes the poor soul wines
she she introduces another concept she's talked really only about the body and the physical body
she introduces this concept of soul which forms a powerful comparison that i think gets at the final
the final impact of this poem as she uses repetition in the second to last line so
in comparison to the body that whines vanishes returns approaches recedes again list-making
she uses repetition to compare that to the body that is and is and is and has no place to go
moving on to talk about lincoln and the bardot in lincoln in the bardo which is an
experimental novel that incorporates aspects of magical realism and historical fiction
the global issue is depicted somewhat differently rather than focusing on the body the
the idea of suffering the concept of suffering is depicted as a mental projection of eternal
suffering in the afterlife based on religious beliefs and i'm going to examine
how this happens through specific choices related to form dialogue and parentheticals
first the form as an experimental novel the way that the where the novel is set it's set in this
liminal phase between life and death known as the bardot it's a hindu concept
nonetheless the character that this particular extract is focused on is a christian he's a
reverend and he is he is portrayed throughout the novel as someone of good character his name
is reverend everly thomas um and specific aspect of the form is that there is no narrator as we
move through the form the there's there is no uh there's no third person first-person narration it
doesn't it does not exist in this novel the entire novel is dialogue between ghosts um and as the
ghosts talk to one another we learn about their um about their perspectives on life and this is in
the middle of the novel at which point reverend evelyn thomas has really been established as
a as a as a i guess as a trusted narrator amongst the different ghosts and so when he is describing
in in first person his own recollection of uh of a of what is christian judgment
um he uses phrases like it was my turn how did you live ask the being on the right so those are
powerful allusions to the christian concept of a final judgment and part of the afterlife and then
the very last quote from the extract i looked at the christ emissary his eyes
were cast down so a specific allusion to a very important figure in in christian theology so
this brings about the idea of internal suffering eternal suffering um i'll talk about that in in my
next point which which refers to the dialogue so this chapter is unique in that every chapter seems
to be dialogue between ghosts but this chapter is a stand-alone chapter that is a dialogue which
really breaks the rules that have been established in the in the framework of the novel and makes it
feel like a dialogue with the reader and because the reverend everly thomas is such a trusted
character he becomes the narrator the effect is really on the reader is really shock disgust and
pity for a for a character that we empathize with quite strongly when he says a quote would
be the tent was no longer silk but flesh the feast was not a feast but rather on long tables inside
numerous human forms were stretched out in various stages of flaying the host was no king no christ
but a beast bloody handed and long fanged wearing a sulfur-colored robe bits of innard speckling it
one of our favorite characters the novel is now in hell and we are with them it's very powerful
finally i'd like to discuss the parentheticals that really gets about the eternal nature of
suffering because in his recollection of the suffering he is suffering again as he
when he talks about the people using ropes of their own intestines it's terrible when he talks
about the if only they might be summoned even if they're arrested the the escort beings were on
fire their searing touch instantaneously burning away his funeral suit horror filled and so he is
as he is recalling the horror he is experiencing it again the cyclic nature almost eternal