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Use of Suffering in the Creation of Meaning

Writers differently use their intellectual capacity and literary skills to appeal to the empathetic moods of readers. Scenarios are created that depict subjection to unfolding suffering that is the writer’s point of connection with the reader. This paper does a literary appreciation and explains how pain has been used to create meaning in two pieces of literature; Orwell’s Such, Such Were the Joys and Diamond’s Last American.

Such, Such Were the Joys

After his admission at Crossgates, the writer tells, he began experiencing a series of interconnected suffering that left both psychological and physical impacts on him.The first suffering was the withdrawal from home that often leaves children with a sense of insecurity and the stress of adoption to a new environment. Children become sick when taken away from home and grow lonely so to miss their family settings.The first suffering subjected the writer to his tribulations that have made him hate the school memories and loathe the idea of visiting his former school.The new environment had a psychological impact on him, something that he now believes happens to every child who has been taken away from home. He started bedwetting, again, at the age of eight. Seemingly, he had been relieved of this uncontrollable problem four years prior, at the age of four. The problem further scaled his isolation as he was the only one bedwetting in their dormitory. He felt odd and that the others must have been looking down upon him because the problem was considered to plague only generations of the younger age. The author wants to connect to the readers in this case by making them understand his situation and then sympathize. He portrays his state of bed pissing as something he did not will, but something that plagued him. He also wants the reader to understand his state of loneliness.Bed pissing was compounded by several other problems that tormented the writer mentally and brought physical pain along. When he is called and warned by Mrs. Bingo, the author develops an enormous amount of fear. He misconceives everything that he is told at this point as a result of little focus resultant of the fear. The fear inspired in him on that day was so great that he seriously prayed to God to take away from him the problem of bedwetting. Suffering is taken to another level when the writer awakes to realize that God did not answer his prayers to stop his problems. Psychological torture scales and the author fails to understand why even after praying and making resolutions with God, his problems still persist.At this state, the matron asks him to report to the Headmaster in which case he gets punished by cane. When he makes a confession to his mates that the punishment wasn’t that painful, he is subjected to a repeat of the same. Moreover, the second punishment is harsher than the first. The writer suffers physical torture from parties who do not understand that his bedwetting is not deliberate. When he is getting punished, he feels like he is in the world in which he is a loner.The author also makes us realize that there is a group of bigger boys, referred to as the Sixth Grade that are warranted to mete out punishments to the younger smaller boys. The more adolescent boys, hence, live in a state of fear not of just the administration, but of fellow students.The writer through all his suffering makes to clear that he is a loner in that school and that none, including the management, understand the problems that befall him. He clarifies his innocence, and the psychological torture that is not tended to, but serves to subject him to more suffering.

The Last American

The literary piece covers the environmental inequities that man commit that have negative repercussions on his life.The overexploitation of environmental resources weakened Agriculture and other economic activities that always played the backbone of ancient empires. Implications of a degraded environment went even further as enemies always sought to take advantage and attack the legendary countries, a factor that always led to their subsequent collapse. Water scarcity could result from overuse of land and land clearance that left the soil bare and incapable of holding enough water. Underground reservoirs could only serve too long but were subject to depletion after which such populated cities were left in a quagmire.Helplessness that resulted from agriculture was caused by poor agricultural practices that did not aim at increasing Agricultural Production to sustain the large populations while protecting the environment.Relevance of protection of the environment is elaborated further in the modern world. Clearing of vegetation and establishing of towns and cities in dry places with no adequate supply of water, deprives man of clean water. Environmental degradation also takes the green cover along with it. The writer lays bare the risks including health hazards that man exposes himself to when he falls short in accomplishing his roles of caring for the environment as he supposedly should.Hampered Agriculture creates a state of malnutrition and weakness. Malnutrition is the source for slowed production and subjection to foreign rule. It can also set way for health plagues.The writer wins the readers to his side when clarifies the suffering that people are subjected to and acts to stem out the root causes. He links the issues to each other and then to the root cause. He further goes to the extent of explaining the actions that should have been taken at that time, and the actions that should be taken at the present. He elaborates how scarcity of some resources results from overexploitation of others, or how poor leadership catapults man’s problems. By associating the ancient dynasties to the present world, the author is implying that if no drastic measures are taken, the current dynasties night just end in the same state as the previous.

Conclusion

Suffering is always used by the writers to appeal to the reader’s intellect to understand the situation at hand. It has been used in the first instance by Orwell to win the reader to his side of questioning just how the ancient curriculum was run. In the second case, it is used by Diamond to help the reader understand the repercussions of poor environmental care and impacts of poor leadership on the well-being of the country. That achieved, the reader develops the same attitude as the writer and wants to help protect the environment.Suffering as a literary tool, is used to create meaning for literary pieces and win the readers’ sympathy. Moreover, it is used to develop a new mentality in the readers.