In Seltzer’s “The Knife”, his devotion to the job is represented via religious comparisons and figurative analogs towards nature. One such example is his use of flowers to stylize and art-ify his piece. Seltzer states “until the wound blooms with strange flowers whose looped handles fall to the sides in steely array”. He artistically describes two things in this statement, the first being the wound itself (the “flowers”), then his operating table, which he vividly contrasts against the naturalistic beginning of the statement. These both show how he believes his profession as more of an art, as opposed to simply a “job”. A second example is his use of words with religious connotation. Some such words are “Damascus” (a hotspot for religious everythings since the beginning), “pray”, “temple” and “ark”. These words are all used in a way that convey his strong feelings of devoutness to his job, as one is devout in his/her religion. One final instance is that of his blunt claim of priestliness in his profession. He states “I must confess that the priestliness has ever been impressed upon me.” It doesn’t get much more blunt than that. It is a clear preposition of his faithfulness towards being a surgeon. Between artistic analogs and steely bluntness, Seltzer easily conveys his ideas about surgeons in a stylistic and artistic manner.
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