I had the most challenging task at the end of writing this essay. It was to find a picture that aligns with the theme of this essay which would not disturb the reader. I could not overcome that challenge. So I settled for a cover image of a book that deals with the theme of this essay.
English vocabulary holds few phrases as chilling as ‘burnt alive’ and ‘buried alive’.It is a phrase that remains head and shoulders above fear. Just to read that phrase is a throw into a deep abyss of primal terror.
The Holocaust is a horrific scar on human history that serves as a constant reminder of this barbarity. Yet, it feels like just one chapter in a saga of a civilisation. Literati grappled with these horrors in the 19th century, offering fictional glimpses into the depths of human cruelty. Now, the daily news bombards us with harrowing accounts from the Gaza conflict.
The recent discovery of mass graves in Gaza offers the chilling suggestion of live burials. It reminds that our once fellow humans have been burned alive for following a different path within the same faith. The irony is a bitter pill to swallow.
Unthinkable ways
The very thought of being burned alive or buried alive chills us to the bone.They are just two unthinkable ways to meet one’s end.If we look at the history of burning as a punishment, we come across religious executions. Burnt alive was the ultimate punishment reserved for heretics. Well, labelling someone heretic, just because they act against the standards and norms of a period, is a vague affair.
Fire is a primal source of warmth and light.
By day the LORD went ahead of them in a column of smoke to lead them on their way. By night he went ahead of them in a column of fire to give them light so that they could travel by day or by night.
– Exodus 13:21, Gods’ Word Translation
Most importantly fire is also a powerful tool of destruction and pain. Throughout history, fire was wielded as a weapon, not just against the physical body, but against the very soul of humanity and humanism.
Imagine the scene. Accused of witchcraft or heresy during the Inquisition, you stand alone. Once a group of friends now turn into accusers, and whispers morph into pronouncements of guilt. The very fabric of faiths become doubtful. The psychological torment is indescribable. Isolation, public humiliation, and the constant threat of torture erode the sanity. Sleep is a luxury – or a battlefield, to be precise – haunted by visions of the flames that await. The condemnation is not just legal. You are stripped humanity long before the fire touches your flesh.
The physical torment is almost too horrific to contemplate. As the flames lick at the skin, the initial searing pain gives way to an agony. Every breath becomes a struggle, filled with the acrid stench of burning flesh. Panic sets in, a primal scream trapped behind clenched teeth. The body desperately seeks escape.
But the flames hold you captive.
Powerful literary imagery
Fire plays a powerful literary imagery role in Ken Follett’s Column of Fire, serving with emotional and thematic weight. Follett excels at crafting vivid descriptions that place the reader right in the mid of the action. He paints a picture of the sights, sounds, smells, and textures of 16th century England.
The crowd was noisy, but they fell silent when Osmund Carter appeared from the direction of the Guild Hall, with another watchman, the two men again carrying Philbert between them on a wooden chair. Thy had to force their way through the crowd, who made way reluctantly, as if they would have liked to obstruct the progress of the chair but did not quite have the courage.
The women of the Cobley family wailed piteously as the helpless man was tied upright to a wooden stake in the ground. He kept slipping down on his useless legs, and Osmund had to bind him tightly to keep him in place.
The watchmen piled firewood around him while Bishop Julius intoned a prayer in Latin.
Osmund picked up one of the torches that had lit their nighttime labours. He stood in front of Philbert and looked at Sherrif Matthewson, who held up a hand indicating that Osmund should wait. Matthewson then looked at Julius.
In the pause, Mrs Cobley started screaming, and her family had to hold her.
Julius nodded, Mathewson dropped his arm, and Osmund put the torch to the firewood around Philbert’s legs.
The dry wood caught quickly and the flames crackled with hellish merriment. Philbert cried out feebly at the heat. Wood smoke choked the nearest watchers, who backed away.
Soon there was another smell, one that was at once familiar and sickening, the smell of roasting meat. Philbert began to scream in pain. In between screams, he yelled: “Take me Jesus! Take, Lord! Now please, now!” But Jesus did not take him yet.
Ned had heard that merciful judges sometimes allowed the family to hang a bg of gunpowder around the neck of the condemned man, so that his end would be quick. But Julius evidently had not permitted that kindness. The lower half of Philbert’s body burned while he remained alive. The noise he made in his agony was unbearable to heat, more like the squealing of a terified animal than the sound of a man.
At last Philbert silent. Perhaps his heart gave out, perhaps the smoke suffocated him; perhaps the heat boiled his brain. The fire continued to burn, and the dead body of Philbert turned into a blackened ruin. The smell was disgusting, but at least the noise had stopped. Ned thanked God it was over at last.
Sensory details
The use of vivid sensory details like the ‘hellish merriment’ of the flames and the ‘sickening’ smell of burning flesh take us to a world unthinkable. Philbert’s desperate prayers to Jesus for a quick death juxtaposed with the slow, agonising burn highlight the lack of mercy in this supposed act of justice.
Protagonist Philbert is a helpless man who is transformed into a blackened ruin. The crowd’s initial reluctance suggest a sense of humanity even amid barbarity.The passage explores the way religion can be used to justify violence. Bishop Julius’s prayer in Latin adds an air of righteousness to the act, while Ned’s silent gratitude implies a belief in a higher power that allows such suffering.
The detail about the merciful hanging of a gunpowder bag suggests a yearning for a less barbaric form of execution, hinting at a glimmer of compassion. The passage creates a dark and disturbing tone, condemning the barbaric practice of public execution by burning. It leaves the reader with a sense of disgust and horror, but prompts reflection on the capacity for cruelty within a seemingly – or pseudo – civilized society.
Literature allows us to explore these historical horrors from a safe distance. Yet, reading about such events is a gruesome experience. One can only hope that our world can evolve beyond such barbarity, though that may simply be a sentiment bordering on wishful thinking.
Let flames dance free with joyful spark,
Not lick at flesh, leaving its mark.
May hearts find peace, and minds grow wise,
So humanity never goes up in smoke.
