Literary Critique of “A Task”

Czeslaw Milosz, Polish poet, essayist, prose writer, and Nobel Prize winner captures the essence of an oppressed mind victimized by the discriminations of the communist government of Soviet Russia in his poem “A Task.” Specifically, this poem relates the profound damage that controlled speech and the lack of freedom of speech can have on a writer- and on anybody desiring to express themselves. Although this may not be the most common concern when considering discrimination, it is discrimination against all people and the right they have to expression. Controlling a person’s right to speech is lowering their status in society, making them unequal to those in government or in roles of power, and damages human dignity. Many countries around the world, most notably North Korea, Russia, Cuba, and many countries touched by communism in the past, impose the injustice of “controlled speech” on newspapers, media, writers, artists, and civilians wishing to speak up, protest, and petition. Dictatorships as well, such as North Korea, and many African countries controlled by military regimes, and even radical groups, impose this type of discrimination on their people- not to mention other and more torturous forms of discrimination including race, religion, and gender. Milosz’s poem reads:

In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life
Only if I brought myself to make a public confession
Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch:
We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons
But pure and generous words were forbidden
Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one
Considered himself as a lost man.

Milosz begins the poem by describing the “fear” and “trembling” he feels when wanting to “fulfill” his life with the basic human need to express oneself truthfully. If he would be able to express himself truthfully, his life as a writer and as a human being (with an inherent right to expression) would be complete. However, the controlled speech the government imposes does not allow this essential human right and he is left to “reveal a sham.” This “sham” is a lie, and he knows it, and it is an example of the countless lies people are forced to tell in his “epoch.” While the government allows lies, propaganda, and “shrieking” in “the tongue of dwarfs and demons,” he writes so powerfully that “pure and generous words were forbidden.” Any reader can see the hypocrisy in allowing lies and mutations of the truth, seen in the imagery of “dwarves and demons,” to be allowed while forcing words of truth and justice into the shadows. However, the point he is trying to make is even harsher than that: the fact that words of truth were not even allowed at all, let alone pushed back into the shadows. If anyone “dared to pronounce” a truth they would become a “lost man” hinting on the government’s punishment of shipping offenders to Siberian work camps, gulags, jail, and even death.

The need to express oneself in this environment of communism and the dangers of doing so is described to have destroyed the soul of the man (representing many people) in this poem. Controlled speech robs humanity of fulfillment. And while this discrimination may not be the most obvious type, it reminds us of the great freedom we have in America to be able to speak out and produce change from the power of our will to do so. Milosz’s poem is a reminder of what can happen to the individual, let alone society, when they are unable to stand up to those that promote injustice. We are forced to become silent, and silence cannot fight injustice. Therefore, the poem is an eternal reminder for the free world, especially in our great country of America, to never allow injustice of any kind. Free countries must fight for the voiceless and the poem is a reminder to stand up and get your voice heard for marriage equality, gender equality, human rights, and any issue regarding racial and other types of discrimination. Any step in this regard is powerful, from signing a petition to protesting. Milosz, in this haunting poem, makes it absolutely clear that it is the power of the voice that is so essential and instrumental to change and that the lack of it is likened to death.

By Robert Danielak