Conversely, Scarry argues that creating art, tools, and civilization is an act of . A poem, a chair, or a law is a projection of the human mind into durable material. The entire project of culture is, in her view, an escape from the body’s vulnerability to pain.

This essay explores the core arguments of Elaine Scarry’s seminal 1985 work, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World