Survival of the Broken: Analyzing "My Faithful Mother's Tongue" and "Leningrad" Anonymous 11th Grade

“The problem with surviving was that you ended up with the ghosts of everyone you’d ever left behind riding on your shoulders.” - Paolo Bacigalupi

Czeslaw Milosz and Osip Mandelstam are two poets who have survived many tragedies during their lives. They both lived extremely difficult lives due to the situations in their homelands. Osip Mandelstam was a Russian poet who lived in Russia throughout its revolution. Czeslaw Milosz was a Polish poet who lived through times when fascism (World War II and Stalinism) was prominent at his home in Europe. In the two works, “My Faithful Mother’s Tongue” by Czeslaw Milosz and “Leningrad” by Osip Mandelstam, a sense of survivor’s guilt is expressed through the diction and the tone of each poem.

Survivor’s guilt is a serious problem affecting the lives of many after the various atrocities that have occurred in history and that will in the future. For example, many veterans suffer from PTSD, (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). This occurs after one experiences traumatic events, such as experiencing first hand war, seeing lives being taken, and taking lives themselves. Additionally, this guilt can be found within refugees who are forced to leave their homeland. There are many reasons for people...