On the Uncanny Symmetry of Grace and Affliction

The study of certain texts from the 20th century allows us to postulate that the experience of affliction has the same phenomenological structure as the experience of grace. We analyse the biographical stories of Frankl, Weil and Orwell and some of their key texts to prove it. From these, detailed definitions and characterizations of the experiences of affliction and grace are extracted. The paper shows the uncanny underlying symmetrical structure of two experiences that, in fact, lie in the opposite ends of the same existential spectrum.