Agony, a Greek word, which can be translated as “fight,” came to Latin as agonĭa. The etymological evolution of the term derived, in Castilian, in the notion of agony: the state prior to death.
Who goes through an agony, therefore, is in the moments before death, according to the first meaning mentioned in the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE). At this stage, the person is usually considered to be struggling to survive. For example: “After five days of agony, the young man shot dead a rock concert died”, “The doctors are surprised by the recovery of a woman who spent four months in agony”, “I am not afraid of death, but yes to the agony ”.
Agony is usually linked to an instance that leads to death. However, occasional and even permanent improvements in the state are a possibility. For this reason, agony can be understood as a dynamic process whose end cannot be predicted exactly.
There are many symptoms that indicate that a seriously ill person is in the so-called agony phase. However, among them are a noticeable deterioration of what is the state of consciousness, breathing difficulties, confusion, death rattles or even some pain.
However, it is necessary to know that in hospitals there are precisely areas dedicated to the care of those patients who are at that critical moment. We are referring to those that respond to the name of palliative treatments.
Although its duration is variable, the agony implies a certain temporal extension. Suppose a person falls into the void from a height of 50 meters and dies instantly on impact with the surface. In this case, there is no agony of any kind. Instead, a man who suffers a car accident and remains in a coma for eight months until he dies, went through an extensive agony.
The idea of agony, by extension, is associated with intense pain or suffering that is difficult to resist, both physically and spiritually, and what enters its final stages: “We are experiencing the agony of this company: in a short time, we will have to declare bankruptcy “, ” The visiting goal came in the throes of the first half.
Within the cultural field we come across several books that use the term we are addressing in their titles. Among them is, for example, “The Agony of Eros”, which was published in 2014 by Byung-Chul Han and which revolves around freedom in society, neoliberalism, capitalism, beauty, sexuality …
Nor can we forget “The Agony and the Ecstasy”. Irving Stone published this book that comes to be a fictionalized biography of the great Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarotti, the creator of such important sculptures as “David”.
It must be stated that the term agony in certain corners of Andalusia has another meaning. Specifically, it is used colloquially to indicate that someone always thinks of money and tries to hoard as much as possible. An example of this use would be the following: “Manuel is so agony that he even opened his business the day his father died.”
