Internal And External Conflict In Czeslaw Milosz's Poems

Everyone suffers with some type of conflict on a day to day bases. The conflict may not be outwardly evident, yet it is still constantly happening. However, the conflict a person may be suffering outwardly is being caused by the people surrounding this person who are suffering with some sort of conflict. This means that people can suffer with both internal and external conflict. In the same fashion, European authors saw this conflict and decided to put it in writing to show and describe them to their readers. European authors use the literary devices personification, loaded words, and imagery throughout their poems to convey internal and external conflict in the theme man versus self.

European authors use personification in their poems to convey

The Polish poet, Czeslaw Milosz, uses loaded words to describe how people are effected by people. “But all of them would have one subject, desire, / If only my own— but no, not at all” (Milosz 495). Milosz uses the loaded word “desire” to describe how other others’ desires rub off and change other people’s personal thoughts. Imagery can also help connect a society’s effect on someone. Milosz uses loaded words to describe how society effects internal behavior. “So the Earth endures, in every petty matter/ and in the lives of men, irreversible. / And it seems a relief. To win? To lose? / What for, if the world will forget us anyway” (Milosz 494). Milosz uses the loaded words “endures”, “irreversible”, and “relief” to describe how a person realizes that after death the world will move on and forget who they were and what they did. Angel Gonzalez also uses loaded words in his poem “Before I could call Myself Angel Gonzalez to describe how others effect people’s thoughts and ideas. “The success/ of all failures. The insane/ force of dismay…” (Gonzalez 483). Gonzalez uses the loaded words “success”, “failures”, “insane”, and “dismay” to describe how the external success and failures of others force internal and external changes in the people around them. Although loaded words are used only to convey external conflict, some literary devices may be able to express both external and internal

Angel Gonzalez uses imagery as a hidden description for internal conflict. For example, in Gonzalez’s poem “The Future”, he says, “Keel of the ship that strikes the water/ and struggles to open between the waves” (Gonzalez 485). Gonzalez uses imagery such as “strikes the water” and “struggles to open between the waves” to describe how a person has a hard time expressing themselves, which causes them to experience an internal conflict. European authors similarly use imagery to convey internal conflict in their poems. The Polish author, Wislawa Szymborska, writes two lines as imagery in her poem “A Contribution to Statistics” to advance the internal aspect of conflict in her poem. “Hunched in pain, / no flashlight in the dark” (Szymborska 491). Szymborska was referring to a person who is trying to find their way and make decisions in their life. She also uses imagery as a way to advance external conflict in her poem. Szymborska again uses imagery in two lines of her poem “A Contribution to Statistics” to propel the aspect of external conflict in her poem. “Suffering illusions/ induced by fleeting youth” (Szymborska 490). She that a person is having a hard time making his or her own choices because they are being influenced by other’s ideas. Although personification and loaded words were used by European authors to convey their own aspect