Blog 2: The Pain Scale

In "The Pain Scale," Eula Biss discusses the irrationality of judging pain on a scale.  One of her most interested points in the writing is the usefulness of zero on the scale.  She mentions that "Zero is not a number.  Or at least, it does not behave like a number" since it is not a natural number.  Later, she shows how zero differs depending on the scale it is being used in by comparing the different temperature scales at their zeroes.

Biss goes as far as to question whether zero is even a possibility when it came to pain, whether there is such a thing as no pain at all.  As if the only way to fill no pain is to not be.  She compares feeling zero as complete nullification, numbness.  She uses ice and coldness as a visual for zero.  From the ice she uses to nullify her wounds to the fact that the last circle of hell is not hot, but rather frozen.  Which connects to the reason why she uses the temperature scales at zero, to give a feeling of coldness.  But where she goes the farthest on the idea of zero is in the end.  Where after reaching 10 on the pain scale and explaining how it is the worst possible pain imaginable, she compares the 10 on the pain scale to the 10 on the Beaufort scale where it's hurricane-force winds described solely as "devestation occurs.  She finishes by saying "Bringing us, of course, back to zero" which is probably her way of saying death.  Leading to believe that her idea of zero on the pain scale can only be described as death.