Morales-Doyle

“And the Unclean Spirits Went Out of the Man, and Entered into Swine” Adding Depth to an Obscure Story Brendan Morales-Doyle David Wojahn’s poem, “And the Unclean Spirits Went Out of the Man, and Entered into Swine” employs coarse language

and imagery to depict his own interpretation of an obscure Biblical story. Wojahn does this by using the point of view of demons

during the story. In particular, he shows how they see Jesus, and the appeal of a bestial form to the demons.

The Bible story is essential to understand this poem. Without knowledge of the Bible story this poem appears to be only a vulgar

depiction of man. At first glance it seems to be saying that man is so pitiful and corrupt that souls want to escape into a more

natural, animal form of a pig. The Bible story (see the main page) also adds more context to the poem. The story is not an important

one in the Bible, just a simple example of how powerful Jesus is, because he can give the demons what they want, and at the same

time destroy them.

Wojahn uses his language and the form of the poem to get across the emotions and tone of the poem. The Bible names the demons

as Legion and shows that it is they who want to escape from the man and into the pig in the poem. It also shows why there is

symbolism related to a church with the nave, altar, and sacrament and how the demons were betrayed by God. The language of the

poem being more vulgar than is probably necessary and the lack of a rhyme scheme or meter allows Wojahn to get across the tone of

filth and resentment that comes from Legion. Wojahn also depicts a very unfavorable view of humans shown by the man who "squats

in his own shit." I am not usually offended by vulgar language, but reading this poem still manages to leave me somewhat disgusted.

This demonstrates that Wojahn did not mean for the reader to actually feel sympathy for the demons, despite the fact that they are

betrayed by Jesus. This is also shown by the fact that the man “wails his sorrow” pitifully, whereas the demons are simply angry and

not really pitiful at all. The angry perspective of the demons as compared to the man shows that even though they were betrayed, that

they are still evil, and were not treated unjustly by Jesus.

Wojahn also uses imagery to get across a subtle message that is not found in the original story. His depiction of the pitiful man, left as

such a wreck by the demons that possessed him implies that the demons are not necessarily literal. The human, who is controlled by

his demons, is reduced to the disgusting and pitiful form illustrated in the poem. The man is ruined by the demons, and this says that one

cannot give into their inner demons or they will ruin themselves. The pig, on the other hand, is conveyed as being appealing to the demons.

The demons worship the body of the pig with descriptions like “Temple,” “nave,” “altar,” and “sacrament." The human body is often

described as a temple for the soul and the pig, in this poem, is described as an evil version of this for the demons. The demons that

worship the pig are also those that ruined this man. This means that the man would be giving into his more basic, animal, instincts by

being controlled by these demons.

Another hint on what these basic instincts might be is in the repetition and emphasis on the plurality of Legion. In the last

line of the poem “We” is repeated several times. It is not one demon that corrupts the man; it is a legion of them. This emphasis

shows that the basic instincts that the man gave in to—represented by him being ruined by the demon—was a mob mentality.

This in addition to the church imagery seems to say that the bestial, mob instincts were in fact religious ones. The last piece of the

story is Jesus. In the story, Jesus purifies the man, sending the demons to their deaths by putting them into the pigs, and then sending

the pigs into the sea. The sea acts as a symbol for purification, like holy water, it is where the demons die. The fact that Jesus purifies

the man of the demons, killing the pigs instead of the man, could mean that the man was not at fault. This would mean that the people

who do evil things are not at fault for what they do, which would be a very fatalistic opinion. The other interpretation would be that the

man is at fault, but his purification is a form of redemption. Either interpretation has a fittingly religious message. Most likely, Wojahn’s

goal was to incite both opinions from the reader, leaving his poem more ambiguous.

In conclusion, Wojahn uses his language and symbols to create his own interpretation of a Bible story. Wojahn manages to add a lot of

weight and meaning by giving the demons more of a voice than in the story and using this to add moral messages to this largely obscure

Bible story.

Poetry Explication page Back to And the Unclean Spirits Went Out... group page Hannah's Explication & Ryosuke's Explication
 * Links**