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Miracle Fair - Szymborska - Coggle Diagram
Miracle Fair - Szymborska
Cat in an Empty Apartment
Summary
Leaves the cat thinking about what exactly has changed if nothing has been visibly altered and what to do now
Confrontation with death encompasses man’s ancient anguish for himself and belongs together with the survivors’ dilemma
Someone else’s death can also affect the survivor in a strong and personal way
Written in the genre of a lamentation, requiem or elegy
Superficially is about a cat whose owner has passed away
Themes
Death
The Passage of Time
Uncomfortable Truths
Quotes
“ Nothing here seems changed,/ and yet something has changed”
“ Somebody had been here and had been,/ and then had suddenly disappeared/ and now is stubbornly absent”
Hatred
Summary
Looks at the circular nature of hatred
The feeling of hatred is personified
Talks about hatred - its growth, method of operation and havoc wrought by it
Conversational ease but lurks a serious purpose - to expose the evils of hatred
Hatred is portrayed as so convincing that it provides no scope for doubt —> appeals to emotion and not to intellect
Hatred constantly recharges and renews itself and in that sense it never seems to age
Themes
Emotions
Torture
Uncomfortable Truths
Quotes
“Look how spry it still is,/ how well it holds up:/ hatred in our century”
“If it sleeps it’s never for eternity. / Insomina doesn’t sap its strength — it boosts it.”
“Hatred. Hatred./ The grimace of love’s ecstasy/ twists its face”
In Abundance
Summary
Connotes themes of free will vs determinism and fast
Author introduces the ideas of choice and free will which are juxtaposed with imagery that depict aspects of life as predetermined and trapped by determinism
Doesn’t not convey a doubtful tone
Allusions to the holocaust
Although the tone overall seems argumentative it is also critical of society as if she is asking for help and longing for change
Themes
War/conflict
Torture
Death
The Passage of Time
Quotes
“I would have flown,/ from some other stump/ I would have crawled in my shell,”
“A blade of grass trampled by a run of incomprehensible events”
Starvation Camp at Jaslo
Summary
Written as a conversation between the author or perhaps a witness and a journalist or historian
Not overly emotional or sentimental
Very matter of fact and straightforward
Tells the story of those in a completely different world from what we live in today
Perhaps plays off of Szymborska’s own experiences
Draws an analogy between slowly going blind from the scenery with starving death
Shows the surrounding nature is not as innocent as it seems
Themes
War and Conflict
Nature
History
Uncomfortable Truths
Time
Torture
Death
Quotes
“History rounds off skeletons to the nearest zero./ A thousand and one is still a thousand./ As if that one weren’t there at all:”
“They were singing with soil in their mouths. A lovely song/ Write about the silence here./ Yes.”
Still
Summary
Title has two possible meanings:
Not moving or making a sound
Ongoing time
Uses descriptive language to demonstrate suffering
Tackles a dark subject matter —> The Holocaust
Themes
Ignorance and Silence
Suffering
Quotes
“Nathan’s name nags his fists on the wall./ Isaac’s name sings a maddened thrall./ Sarah’s name cries that the water will go first/ to Aron’s name which is dying of thirst”
On Death without exaggeration
Summary
Centred around the confrontation of death from a non-religious perspective to defy social norms and the acceptance of death as melancholy
Explores the unjust, unsystematic and illogical nature of death to simultaneously critique death and empower the vitality of mankind
The closing stanzas of the poem highlight a theme of rebellion that is introduced in the structure of the poem itself
This sense of rebellion is able to be applied to the character of death itself in its reluctance to ‘complete its job’ so to speak or uphold the stereotypes of its role
Themes
Death
War and Conflict
Nature
Quotes
“It can’t tell a joke/ From a star, from a bridge/ From weaving, from mining, from farming,/ from shipbuilding, or baking.”
“So busy killing/ it’s doing it badly,/ Without system or skills/ As if it were just learning on each of us.”
Authorial Context
Jewish, Born in Poland, 1923, died 2012 (age 88) in her home from lung cancer
From 1945, studied Polish literature and sociology until 1948 when she could no longer afford to finish her degree
Since 1945 - poetry published in daily newspapers and periodicals, joined literary review magazine, published collections
Szymborska is a polish poet who published myriad poems in the twentieth century in response to the violence of World War II and the communist occupation of Poland.
Lived in communism (readily accepted since birth) and during WW2, continued her education during this time in underground classes
Discredited her own work when she changed from her communist beliefs
Many poems feature death, war, torture and terrorism - what she lived through
Socialist realist writing style
Deceptive simplicity through creation of sympathy
Humorous perspective on a serious or delicate situation, childlike humour that reflected her personality