Starving Society It has been said that hunger is sharper than the sword. This saying becomes much clearer after reading the book The Siege, by Helen Dunmore. The book paints an overpowering picture of the suffering that accompanies starvation. I know I was much more thankful for the food I have after reading the book. The story takes place in 1941 in Leningrad. It is a time when the people of Leningrad are overwhelmed by the fear of Stalin’s secret police and also the rumors that the Germans are coming to take over the city.
Eventually, the Germans surround the city cutting off the food supply and escape routes. Over six thousand people were killed in Leningrad that winter, mainly from starvation. The book depicts the day to day hardships that one family endures dealing with hunger and the harsh winter. The book explores how the war and lack of food affect both the human body as well as the effect on society as a whole. John of Salisbury’s “The Body Social” uses the body to explain different parts of society and how they need to all work harmoniously to be healthy. John of Salisbury’s “The Body Social” can be used a guide to illustrate the wasting away of the people of Leningrad and their society as a whole.
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The common person and average worker of a society are important to the survival of the society because they are the farmers and factory workers that are responsible for producing all of the goods and services that are needed. John of Salisbury refers to these people as the feet of the body because they are the base that holds the society up. In The Siege most of the main characters are these common people. Characters like Anna who is a nursery assistant that is responsible for taking care of her family.
Also Andrei, a doctor in training, who helps take care of the sick. They are the people who keep day to day life going. Once the Germans surrounded Leningrad they cut off the food supply and electricity. The Germans bombed warehouses full of food and “Thousands of tons of sugar, flour, fats and meat vanish overnight” (132).
The food rations given to these people were as little as a couple of pieces of bread a day (191).
The common people of Leningrad began to starve and freeze and most were no longer able to do their jobs.
People become so weak from malnutrition and lack of food that many are hardly able to walk to the bakery to receive their rations of bread. Hundreds of thousands of people end up dying because of starvation. As the bodies of people start to waste away they are unable to contribute to society any longer. Without the common people, the base of society is knocked out. The body cannot stand without its feet. Soldiers are crucial to society when that society is threatened by another country because their job is to protect the people and keep their way of life safe.
John of Salisbury refers to the soldiers as the hands of the body. The hands are responsible for defending the body from danger it may encounter. The soldiers tried to defend Leningrad from the Germans but they were not strong enough and did not have the resources. “There weren’t enough rifles.
One between six, to start with” (78).
The Germans outmatched the Russian soldiers and wounded and killed them until Leningrad was left almost defenseless. “All of those bodies he’s (Andrei) seen opened. The smell of gangrene in stomach wounds. The glistening, blue-purple slide of intestines” (124).
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With all of the soldiers dying, Leningrad’s society was once again weakened. A body cannot defend itself without its hands. There are many important advisors and people in charge who make decisions that can have many effects on a society. “The Body Social” describes the financial officers and other key leaders as the stomach and intestines. The character in The Siege I used to describe this part of the body is Dimitri Pavlov. Pavlov was the advisor was to figure out how much food was available and decide how much food people should get.
He was in charge of deciding how big or small the rations should be. His job is to figure out the arithmetic. “There is this much food, and it is not being replaced. If no further supplies come into the city, how long will it last?” (147).
When he figured out how much food there was he had to cut the rations to make sure they would last. He knew the small rations would not keep everyone alive, but he knew it would be more devastating if he kept the rations bigger and they ran out of food completely.
Given the small amount of food and the massive amount of mouths to feed, Pavlov had to cut the rations and this had again weakened Leningrad’s people. The body cannot function without enough food in the stomach. The leader or person in charge of a country has a great control over the society as a whole. “The Body Social” portrays the leader as the head of the body. The head has control over the rest of the body. In The Siege Stalin is the leader in charge.
Stalin is not good for the society because of the fear he has put into the people. People are afraid of saying or doing anything that might be against Stalin because someone might turn them in. People who get turned in get taken away in vans by a secret police to be questioned. Some never get brought back. “You hear the van doors clang and the sweat of relief soaks you, shamefully. Some other poor bastard is in that van this time” (2).
Stalin has also put censorship on the country. Anna’s father Mikhail is a censored writer who afraid something bad could happen to him if certain writings of his are found. “This I should not be writing down. How can a man with children be so criminally irresponsible?” (45).
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This quote is a response to what he has written in his own private diary so he keeps the writings under the floorboards covered by a rug. Marina Petrovna is a censored actress who can no longer work because of the fear of what might happen to her.
Stalin has put fear in the people he rules over. He runs the country in a way that negatively impacts the people. If the head is not working as it should be, the rest of the body will not operate properly. The siege of Leningrad was fought less with bullets and bombs and more with depriving humans of there physiological needs. Hundreds of thousands of people died that winter of 1941 because they did not have amount of food or appropriate shelter they needed. Their bodies started to waste away from malnutrition and hunger until they were no longer able to effectively contribute to society.
“The Body Social” helps illustrate that all parts of a society need to be working together harmoniously in order to be healthy. Just as the bodies of the people in Leningrad were wasting away, the “body” of their society was also falling apart. All of the parts of their society were not healthy and not able to work together. The common people were starving, soldiers overpowered, advisors hand no supplies, and the leader was a monster. The body cannot operate without its feet, hands, stomach, and head. Therefore the society of Leningrad could no longer effectively function..
