Anastasia asked 8 years ago
What is the actual significance of showing nudity in Vikram Seth’s poem ‘A Doctor’s Journal Entry for August 6, 1945’?
Nudity in the poem can be seen as symbolic of quite a few things:
1. The vulnerability of the many innocent people whose lives were destroyed.
2. Clothes are representative of society and civilisation, and it is society which teaches us shame. But civilisation and society itself seem to be destroyed by this act and therefore the people are naked. The poet also mentions he felt no shame which is suggestive of the same.
3. It also represents the moral nakedness of the people who perpetrated such acts.
Going by the poet’s motif to convey an anti-war message, the nudity that Vikram Seth’s poem ‘A Doctor’s Journal Entry for August 6, 1945’ shows is certainly symbolic and hence significant. The explosion had burnt people’s clothes and made them nude. This nudity may be symbolic of the nudity of our civilization. The procession of naked men and women is weird and shameful for the humanity and the human civilization. Though we take pride in the progress of our science and culture, we couldn’t get rid of our bare animalistic nature. That said, the poet slams the warmongers by creating such an awkward situation in the poem.
In addition to all these answers, the nudity also means the beginning of the civilisation. There had been no clothes or basic amenities. Neither were there the ideas of humanity and brotherhood. As everything had been destroyed, the people of Japan had to start from the beginning.