Comments on The Pity of Living Things

The Silmarillion Writers' Guild is more than just an archive--we are a community! If you enjoy a fanwork or enjoy a creator's work, please consider letting them know in a comment.

Great! Somehow it reminded me strongly of this poem: 

 

"A snail is climbing up the window-sill

  into your room, after a night of rain.

  You call me in to see, and I explain

  that it would be unkind to leave it there:

  it might crawl to the floor; we must take care

  that no one squashes it. You understand,

  and carry it outside, with careful hand,

  to eat a daffodil.

 

I see, then, that a kind of faith prevails:

  your gentleness is moulded still by words

  from me, who have trapped mice and shot wild birds,

  from me, who drowned your kittens, who betrayed

  your closest relatives, and who purveyed 

  the harshest kind of truth to many another.

  But that is how things are: I am your mother,

  and we are kind to snails."(Fleur Adcock, “For A Five-Year Old)
Though the roles are almost reversed.    



What a lovely comment!

When I started writing this, it was actually two lines from King Lear that were running around my head: As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods, They kill us for their sport. But I was writing as much to get away from those lines as about them, if that makes sense. I think the finished story is much closer to Fleur Adcock's poem. (Of course, my story involves three people rather than two.)

I know Fleur Adcock's poem and love it. I'm not sure whether I had already read it when I wrote the story, but I probably had.