Suffering

Suffering

aloe

symbol of suffering. [Flower Symbolism: Jobes, 71]

Andersonville

horrible Civil War prison where 12,926 Union soldiers died. [Am. Hist.: Jameson, 18]

Bataan

site of U.S.-Filipino army “death march” (1943). [Am. Hist.: EB, I: 867–868]

Black hole of Calcutta

146 Britishers imprisoned in small, stifling room (1756). [Br. Hist.: Harbottle, 45–46]

Chiron

centaur, gave up his immortality in order to end the intolerable suffering accidentally inflicted by one of Heracles’ poisoned arrows. [Gk. Myth.: Benét, 194]

Concentration Camps

where millions of Jews were starved, experimented on, and exterminated by Nazis (1939–1945). [Eur. Hist.: Misc.]

Gethsemane garden

east of Jerusalem where Jesus suffered in anguished fatigue. [N.T.: Matthew 26:36; Mark 14:32]

Hiroshima

where the atomic bomb was dropped (August 6, 1945). [Am. Hist.: Fuller, III, 626]

Io

having been changed into a heifer by Zeus, pestered by gadfly sent by Hera. [Gk. Myth.: Espy, 292]

J.B

. Job’s trials in modern setting and idiom. [Am. Lit.: J.B.]

Job

beset with calamities. [O.T.: Job 1:13–22; 2:6–10]

Mauperin, Renée

undergoes lingering and anguished death from guilt. [Fr. Lit.: Renée Mauperin]

Orestes

persecuted and tormented by Furies. [Gk. Myth.: Wheeler, 271; Gk. Lit.: The Eumenides]

Philoctetes

Greek hero, bitten by a serpent, suffers agonies for ten years. [Gk. Drama: Sophocles Philoctetes in Magill III, 741]

prisoner of Chillon

chained for years in a damp, dark dungeon with his brothers, watches them die. [Br. Lit.: Byron The Prisoner of Chillon in Benét, 817]

Prometheus

chained to rock while vulture fed on his liver. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 221]

Raft of the Medusa, The

realistically portrays anguished ship’s crew. [Fr. Art: Daniel, 166]

Smith, Winston

beaten and tortured with rats for conspiring against the totalitarian regime. [Br. Lit.: George Orwell 1984]

Tantalus

condemned to Tartarus with food and water always just out of reach; hence, tantalize. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 253]

Valley Forge

winter quarters of Washington’s underfed, under-clothed Continental army (1778). [Am. Hist.: Jameson, 519]

Allusions—Cultural, Literary, Biblical, and Historical: A Thematic Dictionary. Copyright 2008 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.