Could Have Szymborska

Could Have In the poem “Could Have” by Wislawa Szymborska, she constructs the poem in such a way that she is speaking not to one singular person, but everyone affected by the Holocaust. Szymborska writes, “You were saved because you were the first. You were saved because you were the last.” I believe this is her way of broadening the horizon of who she is talking to. From what we know about Szymborska and her past careers as a poetry editor, a columnist, and a translator we can see that right off the bat she is venting out her passion for the Holocaust and wants all of the victim’s voices to be heard. I feel that she is using allusion to let their voices be heard. Szymborska also writes “You were in luck- a rake, a hook,a beam, a brake,
The pattern being after every sentence there is a contradiction of said sentence.Szymborska writes “It happened earlier. Later. Nearer. Farther off. It happened, but not to you.” I feel this is Szymborska's way of telling us that no matter which road you take you will end up either alive or dead. Yet you can take one road completely opposite to someone else and both still survive. I also believe that this way of writing is an allusion to all the ways the Jews in the Holocaust survived. She uses the allusion to nit-pick at all the meticulous details of what they had to do in order to live. This is especially so at the last sentence of the third stanza, “ You were in luck- a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake, a jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant…” The only connection between every single story of survival is the instant. I feel that Szymborska uses contradictions to emphasize the importance of what the Jews had to go through to survive, that they had to use whatever they had whether it be stormy weather or sunshine, a forest or no trees. The importance of Could Have by Wislawa Szymborska is immense. Szymborska not only uses allusion to teach readers how to read behind the lines, but she also uses contradictions to show that you can’t survive using only what you want. If you want to survive you must learn to adapt. She also uses allusion to tell us that she isn’t speaking to one singular person, but rather every Jew in the Holocaust, alive or dead. She familiarizes us in just five stanzas with the things the Jews had to do in order to live. She truly taught us all a lesson on how our words can have such a deeper