Robert Hass’s poem “Paschal Lamb” explores the value of sacrifice on an individual scale. The poem examines narratives surrounding the war in Vietnam, most of which center around the speaker’s story about David. Using the Viet Nam War, the metaphor of the sacrificial lamb, and the story of a woman in Greece, Hass looks at how intellect mutes or distances a person from the meaning of sacrifice and how it leads to feelings of power and comfort. Faced with a palpable or immediate sacrifice, in this case life or death or the loss of a job, the individual 's rendered vulnerable and powerless; however, Hass finds that while sacrifice necessarily creates an uncomfortable and unjust power dynamic, knowledge and understanding can prepare an individual to feel merely affronted rather than harmed when called to make a sacrifice, if they are afforded the chance to do so.…