The Suffering of Others explores the phenomenological, rhetorical, and political challenges of representing pain in literature.
Cries of pain vary between cultural and linguistic groups, and the expression of pain (such as grimacing or crying) can vary in quality and intensity from person to person, and is influenced by disability, mood, and previous experiences with pain, as well as the person's own understanding of what that pain is and what it means.Jessica Colangelo explores the role of pain as a subjective indicator of objective harm; Contrary to claims of its intrinsic specificity, pain is always felt through an objectively existing entity (the physical body) that can be perceived by others. Thus, pain enters into intersubjective interaction through the physical body—the person's expressions, words, actions, and presence—which in turn mediates between self and other.Drawing on disability studies, phenomenology, philosophy, and literary studies, Colangelo examines the works of Virginia Woolf, James Baldwin, Sarah Kane, Elie Wiesel, and Margaret Edson to argue that the belief that pain is inexpressible and destructive to thought obscures its central role in relationships and the formation of community.
