The End and the Beginning

1. Szymborska came of age during World War II, a historical event that completely upended her generation. “The End and the Beginning” was inspired by this war and the ways in which the war completely altered life in her native country, Poland. How does this historical and contextual background manifest in the poem? While the poem goes about “fixing” or “reconstructing” things, what is changed? What, if anything, do you think will never be fixed or returned to the way it was pre-war?

2. Szymborska made a conscious decision to use anaphora in this poem, or the repetition of a word or sequence of words at the beginning of a series of sentences or phrases. Szymborska uses this literary device when she repeats the phrase “someone has to” (Line 2). Why does Szymborska lean on this phrase, particularly at the start of the poem? Tonally, what does this repetition achieve? To whom does Szymborska refer with the use of “someone”?

3. While Szymborska wrote this poem in the aftermath of World War II and likely wrote it about Poland, the poem reads as generic, with unspecific imagery regarding place, location, or cultural norms. Why do you think Szymborska chose to write the poem in this way? What do you think general (rather than overly specific) descriptions achieve?