depicting suffering also inspires hope and confi-
dence in the resilience of the human spirit. In most
stories, suffering is temporary and usually resolved
by the end, even if the resolution is simply death or
justice served for those who have suffered. Literature
involving suffering, then, is often true to life, in that
it portrays suffering as inevitable and sometimes
inexplicable, but often endured and overcome.
See also Bradford, William: oF pLyMouth
pLantation; Cather, Willa: o pioneers!; Cis-
neros, Sandra: woMan hoLLerinG creek and
other stories; Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: criMe
and punishMent; Edward, Jonathan: “Sinners
in the Hands of an Angry God”; Faulkner,
William: LiGht in auGust; Greene, Graham:
heart oF the Matter, the; Haley, Alex, and
Malcolm X: autobioGraphy oF MaLcoLM x,
the; Heller, Joseph: catch-22; Hersey, John:
hiroshiMa; Kafka, Franz: MetaMorphosis, the;
O’Connor, Flannery: wise bLood; Orwell,
George: nineteen eiGhty-Four; Paton, Alan:
cry, the beLoved country; Pirandello, Luigi:
six characters in search oF an author; Shake-
speare, William: kinG Lear; Swift, Jonathan:
Modest proposaL, a; Voltaire: candide.
FURTHER READING
Bending, Lucy. The Representation of Bodily Pain in
Late Nineteenth-Century English Culture. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 2000.
Noble, Marianne. The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimen-
tal Literature. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 2000.
Nussbaum, Martha C. Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Phi-
losophy and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1990.
Scarry, Elaine. The Body in Pain: The Making and
Unmaking of the World. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1985.
Kristy Cerullo
survival
As with any thematic approach to literary study,
consideration of the role of survival in literature
requires an acknowledgement of the ever-evolving
nature of the theme itself. Of primary importance,
then, is recognizing that at different times, in differ-
ent places, and to different people, the word survival
has taken on myriad different meanings. Our very
understanding of the term fluctuates.
Centuries before the printing press, when writ-
ten texts were far less common, oral transmission
was often utilized as a means of relaying a text,
thus literally tying the survival of texts to the liv-
ing, breathing carriers thereof. The fate of people
and texts were parallel. Numerous works, including
beowuLF (Anonymous), when eventually recorded,
sustained damage or were lost or consumed by fire.
Therefore, concomitant to examining survival in
literature, we have also to acknowledge the necessary
survival of literature, an issue which, even with the
technological advances that have taken place over
the epochs, is again presenting itself.
Literature, of course, cannot be without lan-
guage, and this basic concern is not lost when we
consider the founding documents of the English
language. Early Anglo-Saxon pieces such as Bede’s
Caedmon’s Hymn (ca. seventh century) are, in and
of themselves, testaments to a fledgling language
struggling for its very existence. Works like Bede’s
faced an uphill battle against the preeminence of
Latin, a language to which most deferred due to
its association with the church. Hence, the survival
of any language is, in and of itself, the survival of
familiar ideas and expressions, of connective pro-
vincialism. The early forms of English thus served
as a sort of cultural conduit to crude patriotism.
Correspondingly, the texts that utilize these forms
concern themselves often with defense and survival,
whether focusing on the tribe or on the nation-state.
The Arthurian legend serves as an early example of
literature concerned with survival beyond merely
that of the individual, as does Sir Gawain and the
Green Knight centuries later (although as Gawain’s
head is literally at stake, individual survival is not
entirely dismissed).
Given the ties between the church and Western
states, especially since the rise of Christianity, the
intermingling of religion, the state, and the texts that
carried their respective messages was of the utmost
importance. The middle of the second millennium
in particular saw monumental struggles between
Catholics and the newly emergent Protestants for
control of the hearts, minds, and truly the states112 survival