Man is afraid of many things. Maciek is afraid of the dark, Justyna is afraid of terrifying excess weight, and Krystyna from the gasworks panics at the sight of a small gray mouse running peacefully across the room. However, there is one thing we all fear. Death, because that's what I'm talking about, usually occurs naturally: we die when we are elderly, have grandchildren, and consider ourselves fulfilled. The descent can also be sudden: due to illness, murder, terrorist attack, or ... the end of the world. When we think about how we die, we rarely consider the extinction of life on earth. For us, it is an extremely abstract thought, detached from reality. Many artists raised the subject of the vision of the end of the world, showing it in various, very interesting ways. The only question is what is the purpose of these songs? Is this a warning to humanity? Maybe they are only written for the broadly understood publicity? I will try to answer these and other, certainly more interesting questions.
Dies Irae was released in 1902. The title means "Day of Wrath" in Latin. This piece is a hymn that was sung at various Christian celebrations. In his work, Kasprowicz wants to present to us his vision of the day of final judgment. The lyrical subject of the work is the first man on Earth - Adam. The addressees of the monologue in its performance are the psalmist, Christ, and God the Father. Already at the beginning of the piece, we are able to notice some allusions to different visions of the apocalypse. According to the poet, the day of judgment will be accompanied by trumpets and supernatural phenomena. On that day, man is sinful, weak, and lonely. Adam pleads for help and mercy on behalf of mankind. Vipers, snakes, and all kinds of vermin crawl out to the ground, lightning strikes, rivers, and seas run with blood, the earth collapses, ghosts rise from cemeteries, millions of crosses grow on the ground, and trees fall shattered. There are also visions of biblical images - the head of the crucified Christ, scenes of the crucifixion, Eve, who was the first mother, the source of sin, the prophets Enoch and Elijah, and apocalyptic images. Watching this, Adam draws terrifying conclusions. It states that God as its creator and Eve are responsible for all evil on Earth. The sin of Adam and Eve, and the suffering of Christ, were pre-planned by God. After all, the subject believes that God can save him. This is evidenced by his pleas for rescue. The end of the piece is tragic for its protagonist. Adam is slain, he dies with the entire created world. This ending is catastrophic and hopeless.
Czesław Miłosz presents us with a different picture in his Song about the End of the World. The recipient has to deal with plastic images that build a cheerful, idyllic atmosphere. A bee is hovering over a flower, a fisherman mending a net, women are walking down the street, and a drunkard is sleeping. So everyone is engaged in a specific activity. The world presented in the piece is full of peace and harmony that cannot be disturbed by anything. People remain unaware that this is the end. They did not imagine him like that, they think that archangel trumpets, flashes of lightning, and thunders would announce him. So there is no panic or panic. Everything happens in the natural order of things. And only one old man knows that this is the end saying: There will be no other end of the world. Even so, she continues to tie her tomatoes. He does not make a tragedy out of it, reconciled with the idea that that end must have come someday.
Let's move on to the movies now. The first song I would like to discuss is from Francis Lawrence's film "I am a Legend". The film is set in 2012. The destruction of the world in this piece came suddenly. By mutating a virus, a drug has been found that treats any type of cancer. Unfortunately, this virus turned out to be fatal for humanity, because for some unknown reason it got into the air and began to evolve, introducing enormous confusion and destruction into the human body. 90% of the world's population has died and the rest has changed, showing symptoms of rabies and being sensitive to UV (i.e. solar) radiation. This means that they were practically always in the shade. However, one man survived - Dr. Robert Neville. His only friend is a dog. This animal is for him a refuge, a peace that replaces his family. Interestingly, the main character set up mannequins in the city, thanks to which he can lead a normal life. She hunts games during the day and hides from beasts at night. He is also trying to find a cure for this disease. His life collapses when the dog is killed by the beasts that roam the city and he tries to commit suicide himself. He is saved by a woman with a child ... He is unable to accept the fact that he is not alone in the world. At the end of the film, he manages to invent a medicine that can heal the infected. However, he does not manage to survive but gives the ampoule with the medicine to the woman who runs away. The destruction of the world in this case was presented in a completely different way than in literary works. Man wanted to create something that would help us all live better. He was sure that he was able to do it with a controversial method, he was sure that he was able to overwhelm the forces of nature, and he was sure that he was able to save humanity from cancer. However, it was miscalculated.
The final film is "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines" directed by Jonathan Mostow. The first, second, and third part of the film I am discussing are about the life of John Connor, who, according to the story of a man sent from the future, will become the leader of a rebellion aimed at destroying a computer system called Skynet. What is the new Skynet? It is a human-made computer program that was originally intended to become the US defense system. It was prepared by the fictional company Cyberdyne. In general, it is an artificial intelligence that was supposed to make its own decisions when the US was threatened. In fact, this program gained self-awareness and was recognized as its main threat to the man who was able to turn it off. After Skynet was activated, it had control over the entire computerized military arsenal. The decision about any attack was no longer made by man but by machine, which became catastrophic. Skynet launched the attack by firing nuclear warheads at various places on the ground. His sole purpose was to kill every human on earth. On the basis of this work, I am able to conclude that man can be responsible for the end of the world, creating a being who thinks faster, acts more efficiently, and has no obvious needs to satisfy us. The creation of artificial intelligence, which many scientists dream of, may prove fatal for humanity.
Catastrophic visions and images of the doom are a frequent topic in contemporary literature and film works. Although it seems that everything has been said in this area, in all ways, new pieces are still being written. This is because everyone wants to present their picture and somehow respond to both the Holocaust and the destruction of the Earth. Besides, talking about it probably helps to get used to the idea that the end of the world has to come sometime. And although there is a certain pattern in the views on the destruction of the Earth, which is carried out from the Bible through other works, Czesław Miłosz's poem opposes it and shows that this vision depends on the artist.
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