The Knife Selzer Analysis

Surgery is a limitless field which causes countless emotions. However, like any explorer, fear is also part of the mixed emotions we go through as we can face the unknown dangers of tasks and we must summon all our courage to reach our objectives. Throughout the whole passage, there are tones and emotions that drift throughout this narrative non-fiction piece. To start off, there are five emotions Selzer goes through when talking about his profession as a surgeon. The first tone that Selzer feels deeply in his heart is trepidation. Trepidation is the feeling of fear that causes you to hesitate because you think things can go wrong. Selzer provides us with several instances where trepidation is the most evident emotion he feels. To begin with, this piece starts off with, “One holds the knife as one holds the bow of a cello or trulip-- by

Just beginning to read the title, we sense the dread within the surgeon who has been doing his job for either years or a week. But that's the thing, there is dread within Selzer as he names the short story, “The Knife.” Selzer states, “More, I am struck with a kind of dread that it is I in whose hand the blade travels… yet again this terrible steel-bellied thing…” (Paragraph 1) Calling the knife steel bellied is something that is monstrous. There is fear just by holding the knife about how much it can do with just a slice. This diction and connection shows Selzer's true fear of surgery and the pressure on himself to be gentle with knife. Another example of fear rising is when Selzer claims, “like children absorbed in a game or the craftsmen of some place like Damascus” (Paragraph 3) This is significant because Damascus was a place where knives and swords were made but this city was fought over and had something horrible happen to it. This imagery helps us conclude the connection that when he has this knife, there is the fear that something terrible could