The Politics of Pain by Eula Biss - Book Report/Review Example

The Politics of Pain INTRODUCTION In the essay d ‘The Politics of Pain’, as written by Eula Biss, the major focus lies on the explanation of pain and the human response to such a feeling, in a philosophical manner. The writer has given more of the emphasis on this subject as she denotes that pain is a mostly negative feel of emotional or physical experiences, which must be redefined by the people. For the explanation of pain, Eula Biss started her writing with reference to the concept of zero. Apparently, the meaning of pain depends on the perceptions and conditions of the people. For instance, in a health care sector, the meaning of pain differs from that of other sectors. The professionals of health care sector quotes that pain is an intrinsic experience of a human being (Carp, “The Politics of Pain”). Similarly, in this essay, Eula Biss have tried to give the basic meaning of pain in human life. THESIS STATEMENT This essay comprises the explanation of the concept of pain in accordance to the views presented by Eula Biss in her article titled ‘The Politics of Pain’. The essay has represented pain as one of the usual experiences of human beings, which needs to be redefined and understood by every individual. DISCUSSION According to Eula Biss, the concept of zero is much newer as compared to the concept of Christ. Eula Biss also states that both the concepts are confusing being developed in the ancient times, certainly in a different social and economic scenario. However, the concept of zero is much more confusing than the concept of Christ, as argued by Biss. As revealed in this article, she believes that the absence of pain from human life is not at all possible. Due to this reason, Biss has compared pain with that of zero. According to Biss, zero does not exist as a number, just like that of absence of pain is not possible in human life. In accordance to this believe, she quotes that “Zero is a number in the way that Christ was a man” (Biss 171). Similarly, as zero cannot be added or subtracted with the other numbers, pain also cannot be removed from one’s life. Biss also opposes saying that she is not a mathematician rather she is trying to grade her concept of pain on the scale of zero to ten. During her grading of pain in the scale of zero to ten, she has represented zero as that point wherein the water freezes. Likewise, zero is that point where the pain becomes that particular aspect, which cannot be removed or erased. Accordingly, Biss fundamentally explains the point of zero with an interesting example of a chicken. If someone holds the neck or body of the chicken, it tries to run away and cries due to excessive pain and fear. On the other hand, if the chicken is held by its feet and turned upside down, it does not cry or try to run away. It represents that the chicken does not have the sense of pain at a point of zero i.e. if turned upside down by tying up its feet (Biss 171-183). While writing the article “The Pain Scale”, Biss mentioned the example when she had sat alone in an exam room of the hospital and observed the scale of pain with two phrases written on it. One of the phrase was “under zero: no pain” and the other was “under ten: the worst pain imaginable”. Biss states that her father had said that often the incidents, which are expected to be painful, are not. One of the examples to prove this fact is that often the person who is starving for death does not have any kind of physical or mental pain. Going through the article of Biss on the subject of pain, it was further observed that she had quoted a phrase “No face, no pain?”. This was quoted by Biss as she felt that a crying baby can be determined as in the most painful situation. Although they cannot speak or express their feelings, but their facial expression shows their pain and sorrow. It is worth mentioning that the babies do not have that nervous system, which could feel the pain at their infant stage. Medical tests have recently found out that often the babies feel the sense of pain when they are quite grown up. Due to the undeveloped nervous system of the child, they are unable to experience any kind of pain, but it is owing to their crying faces that they are often concluded to be in pain (Biss 176-177). With regards to the aforesaid quotations, Biss states that pain is a serious and horrible experience of a person. She also determines that often people tend to express that the pain they are going through is the worst or most horrible of all the pains. As mentioned in the article Biss’s father was also of the view that usually people’s pain is tested on the scale of zero to five. However, Biss opposes to it saying that there is an upper limit of pain i.e. up to ten. It also means that the human nerves can resist more pain. According to Biss’s father, one of the basic purposes of introducing the system of measuring pain on the scale is to protect the doctors or other medical professionals from any kind of emotions or sympathy towards the patients suffering from severe pain. Biss have correspondingly mentioned in her article that pain is a certain kind of physical or mental wound that experienced by an individual (Biss 170-183). The other word that comes into relation with pain is suffering, which entails the story related with the pain in a clearer form. As mentioned in the earlier section, Biss had mentioned that the concept of Christ is quite confusing similar to the concept of pain. According to Biss’s belief on the concept of Christ, it can be stated that too much suffering in life often lead towards the attainment of hell. Thus, the concept of Christ and the explanation of zero in accordance to pain are denoted as confusing by Biss. It has also been observed in the article that majority of the people suffering from chronic pain think that their pain is most severe as compared to that of the other’s pain. It is termed as the worst and horrible pain ever experienced by the individual, which often gives them a religious feel that they are being punished because of their sins. Biss also believes the word of Christ stating that pain is actually a holy event whereas on the other hand, suffering is heavenly. Hence, this essay concludes saying that the concept of pain can be measured through the scale of zero to ten. However, often people grade their pain, when marked on the number 5, as it is that point where lack of pain is not at all possible. Hence, the description of pain has been mentioned on the scaling system, which is also a common process adopted by the medical professionals (Biss 170-183). CONCLUSION After the analysis of the article, “The Pain Scale”, written by Eula Biss, pain can be referred as some kind of physical or emotional experiences of human beings. In medical terms, it is believed that nervous system in the human body is responsible for the pain experienced by the person. In context to this matter, a baby is stated to never feel the extent of pain due to the absence of fully-grown nerve system in their body. Usually, the medical professionals use the scaling system of pain to control their emotions or sympathy towards their patients. The scaling system of pain is a numbered scale ranging from zero to ten. At the zero level, people is freed from pain and at level ten, people are acquainted with excessive pain, which sometimes becomes unbearable. Emphasizing a similar notion, Biss has compared the concept of pain with that of zero and later, with that of Christ, providing the viewpoints of both scientific and religious orders. Works Cited Biss, Eula. ‘The Pain Scale’. Seneca Review (n.d.): 170-183. Print. Carp, Jonathan. The Politics of Pain. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2014. Read More