Richard Selzer was an American surgeon and author. He often wrote about his life and his experiences as a surgeon. In his essay “The Knife”, he uses figurative language to show his conflicting opinions about being a surgeon. For example, he uses nature imagery to portray his opinions about the beauty of the human body. He uses religious allusions to show how he feels that he has an extreme amount of power over his patients, as he controls whether they live or die. Lastly, he compares surgery to art to show how he feels surgery is an art form and he is very meticulous about it as if it were a masterpiece. To begin with, Selzer alludes to religion to show his power over his patients and his fear of doing them harm. He describes his requests for surgical tools as a “litany of monosyllables with which one prays his way down and in”. A litany is a prayer in a Christian church service. Selzer describes praying while performing surgery to show that he hopes that he does not do harm to his patient, who is …show more content…
For example, he explains that “one holds the knife as one holds the bow of the cello”. This shows that he is very passionate about surgery and feels that he needs to be gentle when performing. He also compares himself to a poet when he says “the scars you have made on countless bodies are like verses into the fashioning of which you have poured your soul”. Here he shows that he connects deeply with each surgery he performs and treats it as if it were his masterpiece, since he says he remembers each individual cut he has made on another like how an artist remembers making every piece that they have created. Lastly, he says that in surgery, he and his knife are “joined by other instruments”. The word instruments is ambiguous, as generally it would mean musical instruments, but in this case it is referring to medical