Savannah Drew

Professor Hiltbrand

English 145

1 April 2018

Revised

Death in literature has been a constant theme throughout history. Authors use this theme to explore the vast unknown of the life beyond this. Each culture sees death differently. Some see it as a new beginning, a temporary separation, or an irrevocable finality. In life, humanity avoids the inevitability of death. Society avoids thinking about it and we do everything in our power to prolong its arrival. Though death is just another thing that binds humanity together in common, it is still a subject that is uncomfortable. Authors use their works to challenge the ideas that death is anything but shameful. They show that one can empathize with those suffering loss, and even see death as transformative, horrific, yet beautiful. There are so many forms that death can take, the literary capabilities are endless. Here we will explore how authors throughout the generations viewed death and how they used their works to overcome it. Authors who write so beautifully of death in turn, ironically receive a form of immortality.

Emily Dickinson is one of the most interesting writers of her time. The eccentricities of her life alone make for an interesting discussion topic. But her strange affinity for seclusion is pale in comparison to her style of writing. By all accounts Emily Dickinson was a shut in. She shied away from the outside world and chose to explore the reaches of her imagination, mind, and soul. These lifelong explorations produced some of the most soul touching works of literature in history. The limited physical interaction she had was a way for her to have insight into interactions of others. She was on the outside looking in. She not only understood herself but the world around her in a way that was both beautiful and distressing. She used her work to bridge the gaps between people of different walks of life in a less direct way. Her writing themes seem to correspond with Edgar Allan Poe in the way that they both lean towards the mysterious and dark. It is refreshing to see a woman poet to not shy away from what is considered morbid for something that would be considered more ladylike. She uses the theme of death, paired with metaphors as an expression of unity and comfort. In poem 449 - Dickinson illustrates the comradery in death, as well as its artful and profound beauty. In this poem, one person died for beauty while the other died for truth. Yet they are both “Brethren”. No matter the reason for their end, all are equal in death. And we are also not alone even in death. She writes “We talked between the Rooms – Until the Moss had reached our lips – and covered up – our names -“ (485). Her interest in the complexity and beauty of death was so enveloping that her works portraying the subject has survived the ages and her name is forever imprinted on the lips of literary scholars.

Emily Dickinson and Charles Baudelaire are similar in the sense that they both write about death. But their genders and social classes are their differing factors. Yet, it is beautiful that their thoughts are similar, and it lays a common ground and bridges their differences. Baudelaire Found ideas in common with author Edgar Allan Poe, “… who shared his dedication to beauty, his fascination with death, and his passion for perfectly crafted writing.” (466). Baudelaire was also a man in an era where men could be successful whereas Dickinson was a female and had little to no option to hold her own career in a world that saw her as a wife to be had. Even Dickinson choice to write about death would have turned more than a few heads, even as polite as it were in comparison to Baudelaire. In Baudelaire’s poem A Carcass, he fully encompasses the passions he finds in common with Poe. He makes death seem noble and appreciated in his wonderful way of colorfully and morbidly depicting things that would be a true horror to behold. Baudelaire uses amplification of the visual senses to drive a mental image you cannot escape while reading, The poem is about the rotting corpse of a woman on the side of the road. Many would have passed by and averted their eyes, but the narrator is reminiscing about it in such detail that it shows almost admiration. He writes "And render to Nature a hundredfold gift Of all she'd united in one." (471). That in her death she would give life to new things. Maggots and flies would feed, and her flesh would feed the soil below her. In death, life was sustained, and in a horrific scene of graphic decay, there was a beautiful respect. His vivid writing style and sensational recall is why we remember him today.

Every poet and author does not always accept death or its taking of victims. Sometimes authors use their pen as a way to work through the difficulties of their lives. Ghalib suffered much loss in his life. However, the final blow to his heart came with the death of his wife and adopted son. In his eulogy that he wrote for them titled, It was essential , he explains his grieving and bargaining with death as it comes for his family. He bargains with his wife saying “I agree that staying forever isn’t good – but stay with us for a few more days.“ (597). What he fails to realize, is that no amount of time ever be enough when you know the end is coming. To many, death is final and seen as a loss. You lose the persons company and their existence as you knew them. He takes some minor comfort in the fact that his family will meet him again one day on Doomsday which holds specific cultural connotation as it is the authors belief of afterlife (597 footnote). However, he says that “How great- that doom will have its day on one more day.” (597). This is Ghalib saying that the end of his days, is when his happiness is gone from this world. Thus, knowing that his wife and the only child he ever really knew would be gone, so would his happiness, and so would his life even if he survived to an old age. He concludes his poem with “It’s my destiny to continue to wish for death for a few more days.“ (598). Even though Ghalib did not celebrate death, he still made his dedication to the death of his family beautifully touching and moving. He embraces death in the end as a way for him to be with his family again. Believing in some form of an afterlife where all who had perished would be reunited. We see him working through the human emotions during the stages of grief and how his final relenting was a sigh of surrender to the condition that binds us all. This human understanding and personal honesty is why his works have survived long after he has died.

Historically, death in literature has been romanticized. We have all heard of the tales about lovers fated to parish by their own hands, a warrior facing an undefeated opponent, or an old man bound to his bead. Readers sometimes shy away from the grotesque, the dark, the depressing. Which is where we find these three authors who not only portray death in its less than attractive form, but also express the powerful beauty beneath their brutally honest approach. Their commitment to expressing the truth of their lives and the lives they observe is admirable. Their expression of the complexities and many different beliefs about death helped readers form their own opinions and even explore ideas they had not yet thought of in relation to how they see death. In the end, death is the end we all face. It is the call we will all answer, and no man can avoid it. It is a unifying part of the human experience. Though the loss of loved ones is tremendously difficult, and the thought of your body rotting away is sickening to imagine, we will all find our names on tombstones in the end just like those who came before us. The difference however, is who will be remembered when they are gone? The authors contributions to the living's ever expanding search for knowledge have well surpassed their mortal lives. And with their acceptance of death, they earned a small bit of immortality in the pages they left behind. The names on their tombstones may wither away as time goes on, but their name on the thousands of pages will live on in the hearts and minds of readers forever.