Key Quote
“"A hundred agonies in black-and-white / from which his editor will pick out five or six"”
Carol Ann Duffy · War Photographer
Focus: “five or six”
The reduction of 'a hundred agonies' to 'five or six' published images captures the brutal editing process — most suffering is simply discarded. Duffy indicts a media system that curates pain for consumer consumption.
Technique 1 — NUMERICAL CONTRAST / REDUCTIVE LANGUAGE
The contrast between 'a hundred agonies' and 'five or six' is mathematically devastating — over 90% of documented suffering is discarded. Duffy uses this numerical precision to expose the commodification (turning something into a product) of pain: suffering must be selected, curated, and packaged before it reaches the newspaper reader. The word 'agonies' — not 'photographs' — reminds us that each image represents a real person's pain.
The phrase 'black-and-white' functions as a double meaning: literally, the photographs are in black and white; metaphorically, Duffy suggests the public wants moral simplicity — clear-cut binary narratives of good and evil — when the reality of war is infinitely more complex. The editor's selection process further flattens (reduces complexity) reality into digestible content.
Key Words
RAD — STAGNATE
The poem ends where it begins — the photographer returns to 'Rural England' and the cycle restarts. Nothing changes: the wars continue, the photographs are taken, the public briefly cares and then forgets. This cyclical stagnation implicates everyone: the photographer, the editor, and the reader are all trapped in a system that processes suffering without ever truly responding to it.
Key Words
Technique 2 — RELIGIOUS IMAGERY — 'A PRIEST PREPARING TO INTONE A MASS'
Duffy describes the photographer as 'a priest preparing to intone a Mass', transforming the darkroom into a sacred space. The comparison elevates his work from journalism to ritual — developing photographs of the dead becomes a spiritual act of commemoration. The 'solutions' (darkroom chemicals) pun on the impossible quest for 'solutions' to war, creating bitter double meaning.
The contrast between 'Rural England' — where 'ordinary pain' means 'a survey of Sunday supplement readers' — and the war zones ('Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh') creates a geography of suffering. Duffy lists conflict cities in staccato tricolon, their brevity suggesting that suffering has become interchangeable — one war zone blurs into another. The photographer carries the weight of distinction that the public refuses to make.
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Context (AO3)
WAR PHOTOGRAPHY & DON McCULLIN
Duffy based the poem on war photographers like Don McCullin, who documented conflicts in Vietnam, Northern Ireland, and Cambodia. McCullin described the moral burden of photographing suffering: 'I don't think I could work in a war zone again — I've been too damaged by what I've seen.' The poem explores the ethical paradox of war photography: recording suffering may raise awareness, but it also risks turning pain into spectacle.
COMPASSION FATIGUE
The 'readers' eyes... which do not water' suggests compassion fatigue — the psychological phenomenon where constant exposure to images of suffering produces numbness rather than empathy. Duffy wrote during the 1980s, when television brought conflict into living rooms daily. She critiques a media culture that creates the illusion of engagement while maintaining comfortable distance.
Key Words
WOW — REGARDING THE PAIN OF OTHERS (Susan Sontag)
Duffy's poem anticipates Susan Sontag's influential essay 'Regarding the Pain of Others' (2003), which argues that photographs of suffering create a false sense of understanding — viewers believe they have 'witnessed' an event by seeing a photograph, when in fact they have merely consumed a representation. Sontag warns that photographs can become 'a species of rhetoric' — tools of persuasion rather than truth. Duffy's photographer is caught in this bind: his images are morally necessary (bearing witness) but are immediately recuperated (absorbed and neutralised) by the media system that publishes them. The 'readers' eyes... which do not water' embodies what philosopher Jean Baudrillard calls the hyperreal — a condition where images replace reality, and the sign (the photograph) becomes more familiar than the thing it represents (actual suffering). The public has seen so many images of war that real suffering becomes indistinguishable from its representation.
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