Humanity v. Nature in Szymborska’s “Conversation with a Stone” and “The Onion” by Daniel Sandberg

Wisława Szymborska’s poems “Conversation with a Stone” and “The Onion” are beautifully written pieces that juxtapose nature’s enigmatic elements to humanity’s inherent curiosity. Szymborska does so by comparing human characteristics to the characteristics of each poem’s respective inanimate object, either stone or onion. While this analogous theme is present in readings of both works, the author’s approach to in regards to the comparison differs. This gives each poem an air of individuality and complexity that allows readers to appreciate them both separately and together. In this essay I will briefly analyze the two and show how Szymborska utilizes poetic elements to convey her message.

In “Conversation with a Stone,” Szymborska utilizes a dialogue between her narrator, assumed to be human based on his/her claim to being “mortal” in line 19, and a personified stone to compare the curiosity of humanity with an enigmatic element of nature. This exchange between the persistent narrator and stone illustrates that there are elements of nature of which humans cannot grasp. Despite the narrator’s persistence is asking to enter the stone, the stone is adamant about its stance. This strong, unmoving stance could be read as a both an imaginary characteristic of the personified stone, or the stance may be symbolic of the actual physical features of a stone.

The form of this poem is very repetitive. It is made up of 13 stanzas that vary in length. For the most part, there is no pattern in rhyme or meter. It is only once that we will run into rhyming lines, such as lines 60 and 61 with “said” and “head.” Similarly the meter is scattered. Occasionally it is smooth as in likes 47 and 48 where the lines are both distinguishably iambic tetrameter. Because of this form, readers can find balance in the anaphora of the narrator’s opening two lines for each of his/her part of the dialogue. This repetition is key because it brings a since of order to what would otherwise be a relatively sporadic work.

As the narrator continues to press the issue, he/she expresses that his/her only interest in entering the stone is to bear witness to the beautiful, great and empty walls of the stones insides. I argue that this want of knowledge is symbolic of man’s curiosity. But despite the good intentions of the narrator, the stone’s stance remains the same as it replies, “Great and empty, true enough…/but there isn’t any room./Beautiful, perhaps, but not to the taste of your poor senses” (lines 30-33). This notion that the narrator lacks the senses to appreciate the insides of the stone is key to the last part of the poem and will be discussed later.

After the speaker still persists, the stone’s voice quickly changes the tone of the poem: “’You shall not enter,’ says the stone./ You lack the sense of taking part” (lines 47-48). Up until the ninth stanza, the poem lacks any form of distinguishable rhyme and meter. That changes in the opening two lines of the ninth stanza. These lines are strong, serious, and distinctly iambic tetrameter. This shift from unstructured to structured lines makes this stanza stand out. As it turns out, this is the most important stanza in work because it furthers the idea of the speaker’s lack of sense brought up earlier in stanza 6. Assuming that the narrator is human, he/she would have 5 senses: sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. But the stone speaks of another sense: “the sense of taking part” (48). This notion of nature having senses that humanity lacks leads me to believe that Szymborska is saying nature is superior to humanity because it does not always have to search for answers. Instead, nature is content of its place in the world because it understands that it is part of a whole. But while I argue this is the theme of the poem, there is room for many other interpretations. Evidence of this is shown by the stone explaining that the speaker “[has] only a sense of what that sense would be,/only its seed, imagination” (52-53). The word imagination stands out here. My reading of the poem links this idea of imagination and curiosity together. Another reading could key in on the idea of imagination and conclude that this poem is an imagination due to the irony that stones cannot talk. While I believe one might be able to run with this idea using New Criticism, I favor my reading because I believe it allows for better connections between this poem and “The Onion.” 

Stanzas 10 through 13 are very ironic, leaving the poem with a playful tone. The irony seems to be that the stone refuses to let the speaker enter, not because the stone does not want the speaker to see its hidden insides, but because nature will not let it. The stone tries to explain this to the speaker in the 9th stanza with the idea of humans lacking “a sense of taking part” (48). After the stone gives a quite detailed explanation to why the narrator cannot enter, he/she still naively persists. To this the stone responds by telling the speaker that it can never truly understand nature. It does so by referring to other objects and saying that the narrator will never be able to see the insides of: water, leafs, and even the narrator’s own hair. Of course, as always, the narrator still persists. To this the stone responds with laughter. The irony is that a stone, being a stone, “[doesn’t] know how to laugh” (63).

The ultimate irony illustrated comes in the last two stanzas. The first repeats the anaphora that is said by the narrator in each of his/her stanzas: “I knock at the stone’s front door./ It’s only me, let me come in” (64). To this the stone replies with one short and simple line: “I don’t have a door” (64). This is ironic because the speaker has been ‘knocking’ on the stones ‘front door’ in every other stanza. This abrupt ending concludes the dialogue is a quick and unpleasant fashion.

            While we see a similar comparison between humans and onions in Szymborska’s “The Onion,” the author goes about making the comparison in a different way. Rather than use non-rhyming, sporadic verse, Szymborska shapes “The Onion” by giving it rhyme scheme. The first and last stanzas have an ABCBDEFE rhyme scheme. The second stanza has an ABBCDBEC rhyme scheme. The third stanza is the only stanza that seems to not have a rhyme scheme at all. Despite the third stanzas lack of rhyme, the other rhyming patterns give this poem a lyrical sound, making it a sort of ode to onions. Also adding to this theme of this poem being an ode is the fact that it seems to praise the essence of being an onion. While one can argue that this eulogy of an onion is ironic and satirical, (note lines 31 and 32: Not for us such idiotic onionoid perfections) I argue that reading this with Szymborska’s other poem, “Conversation with a Stone,” allows readers to connect the two because they seem to praise the simplicity of nature.

            The poem starts by expressing how an onion is different from most things insofar as it lacks “innards” (2).  The author then begins to describe an onion with words that contain the word onion: onionhood, onionist, oniony, onionesque, daimonion, onionymous, and onionoid. The use of these descriptive words, while playful and poetic because of the assonance of the on or un sound, does not help us better understand what an onion is – it only shows us that an onion is different from other things. By describing an onion as “oniony” the author is showing that an onion is simply an onion.

            The first quatrain of the second stanza compares the onion to humans. The narrator calls the insides of a human “an internal inferno,/the anathema of anatomy” (11-12). These lines stand out because of the alliteration. Szymborska’s use of alliteration here sets these phrases apart, illustrating that they are important. Though Szymborska’s diction, these lines show that, not only is the human anatomy complex, but that it is a negative thing. The second quatrain of this stanza goes on to praise the simplicity of onions. This direct comparison shows gives credit to reading this poem as a critique on the complexity of human life. One could refute this reading, however, by claiming that the poem is meant to be satirical. While there is evidence to this, as I mentioned previously, I believe that intertextual analysis between this poem and “Conversation with a Stone” give validity to my interpretation of that “The Onion” praises the innate simplicity of an onion, which I believe symbolizes all nature.

Wisława Szymborska’s “Conversation with a Stone” and “The Onion” are both brilliant works of poetry. Separately, they can be read any number of ways. However, if we do an intertextual analysis of the two, they both seem to promote the same central idea: there is a simplistic element of nature that is unexplainable to humans that we cannot comprehend of describe. While she uses different techniques in each poem to make this comparison, Szymborska conveys this message by juxtaposing human characteristics to the characteristics of each poem’s respective inanimate objects. By doing this in both works, this analogous theme is present in readings of both works despite differences in their structure and form.