Essay Ingenious Pain - 1189 Words

The book Ingenious Pain by Andrew Miller takes place during The Enlightenment of the 18th century. This dramatic novel portrays James Dyer, the main character, is born in 1739 without the feeling of pain. In the eight parts of the story, the structure begins near the end in which an autopsy is taken place of James dyer, who died in 1772. The climax of the story is not of his death, but rather the metamorphosis of his human suffering. This change connects with Friedrich Nietzsche theory of pain. In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it is one of the best self preservatives of a species. His theories of suffering, hardships, and pain allow us to understand the goodness of pain. The metamorphosis of Andrew Miller†¦show more content†¦Dyer has sex with the Collin twins, but feels nothing. To achieve pain is to achieve pleasure. One can easily relate to the torture of schooling; overcoming great pain brings great pleasure of success. Needless to say, J ames Dyer becomes captivated by books of anatomy, books of maps, books of experiments . . . books of astronomy, geometry and later becomes a successful surgeon (Miller 120). This is not an issue of success, but of pleasure. Although there may be positive aspects of his inability to feel pain, his metamorphosis eventually counter-weigh it. As James Dyer changes throughout the novel, it portrays the essentiality of pain. The man who is guided by concepts and abstractions only succeeds by such means in warding off misfortune, without ever gaining any happiness for himself from these abstractions. And while he aims for the greatest possible freedom from pain, the intuitive man, standing in the midst of a culture, already reaps from his intuition a harvest of continually inflowing illumination, cheer, and redemption — in addition to obtaining a defense against misfortune. To be sure, he suffers more intensely, when he suffers; he even suffers more frequently, since he does not understand how to learn from experience and keeps falling over and over again into the same ditch. -Friedrich Nietzsche Later in the book we learn that James Dyer starts to become human. In part 6, we see the beginning of DyersShow MoreRelatedTypes of Punishment in Dante’s Inferno Essay1177 Words   |  5 Pagesless physically agonizing, is Dante’s creative and imaginative punishment for sins. The borrowed to rturous forms of punishments create a physical pain for the shades, whereas the creative punishments are used to inflict a mental and psychological suffering. 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