Spiritual Death

While there aren’t any major, story-altering deaths in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce, the main character goes through a type of spiritual death and rebirth through the novel. Stephen Dedalus finds himself constantly wavering between accepting and denouncing religion and the church. However, in going through varied phases of fearing God, loving him, disagreeing with the church, and then agreeing with its message, Stephen’s spirit goes through a period of darkness and then into peaceful searching. It makes the reader wonder if this is how a soul may feel after being the body passes on – a kind of relaxful drifting through the world to see what all is around us.

I think the reactions of the other characters in the novel to Stephen’s transformation mirror the reactions most people have from a loved one passing on. There is confusion as to why it even happen, maybe hurt that they no longer have the same person around, and then finally acceptance that life has a smooth current that can change each minute. The ending seems cathardic in this way because even with his former life becoming irrelevant, both Stephen and his friends can accept with solemn tolerance the new life that he will lead.

The only true deaths in Portrait are of somewhat distant relatives and activists whom Stephen never knew personally. Thus, Stephen hasn’t ever fully felt the pain of losing someone close and further illustrates his status as a young man with many experiences to have in his life.

What Shall Our Tomb Stone Read?

Once in a while, someone will be remembered not because of who he was, but because of how the world saw him. In Toni Morrison's Beloved, the ghost of a murdered baby has power over the other characters because the world she died in saw her death as a metaphor for the evils of slavery rather than the death of a child. Killed by her own mother, the ghost - Beloved - is stripped of her value as a child and human being and given a new identity. She becomes a symbol to reveal the injustices of slavery that are so great they can lead a mother to murder her first daughter.

Maybe this is one of the reasons why Beloved haunts her mother, Sethe. Sethe took away Beloved’s significance in society’s memory. Had Sethe decided to accept her actions in front of everyone as her own (rather than infuse the incident within Beloved’s story), then the world could distinguish the difference between Beloved and suffering. I believe that Beloved haunts Sethe partially because Sethe took away the meaning in Beloved’s death and turned her into a kind of martyr for slavery.

This book raises a side question – how can someone prevent another from shadowing his/her death with a fragmented meaning? I’m not entirely sure but I feel like it’s necessary to either persevere with a certain purpose until all know you stand for it completely before death and thus after, or depend on others to promote your message after you’ve passed on.

Completely Irrelevant

According to Meursault, the main character of Albert Camus’ The Stranger, death places no toll on humanity. Whether one has lived for others, for himself, as a millionaire, or impoverished, his death will become as matter of fact as a hiccup. While Meursault acknowledges the possibility for temporary grievance by loved ones, eventually no one will remember to grieve and one’s death will cease to have even nostalgic value.

Camus demonstrates this gloomy view through the murder of the Arab. Nobody appears to care that a man has been coldly murdered. His death’s most prominent effect on humanity is it provides an excuse to put Meursault on trial. However, Meursault’s trial becomes more of a social critique of his personality than a means for justice for the Arab. The Arab’s death doesn’t anger anyone and it isn’t mentioned or thought of except in courtroom formalities.

By calling death pointless, Meursault also calls life pointless. If death cannot create any commotion then it must be because life has not caused any. Meursault argues that life is pointless and the achievements of one man are never worthy of great praise because, in time, everything that’s been done would have been done anyway. Meursault believes that humanity, as a whole, only uses individuals to speed up the progress of inventions and discoveries, not to create them.

With such blunt cynicism, Camus strips away the usual ceremony that surrounds death in order to replace it with a sort of mechanic indifference. In the eyes of an existentialist, death cannot be measured as good or bad, it simply is and mustn’t be dwelled on

Memories Come And Go, But Character Lasts Forever

While Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky revolves around a murder of two poor women yet the novel focuses on the repercussions for the murder rather than the crime against the women. Why does Dostoevsky write about such a heinous act of murder and such a universal topic as death and then ignore both issues as he continues his novel?

Because one of the women, Alyona Ivanovna, is an evil and decrepit pawn broker, Dostoevsky’s dismissal of the severe action against her can be seen as permissible. In life, just as in Crime and Punishment, those who cheat others and are frugal with compassion are not well remembered, and only if their deaths are dramatic will they have the pleasure to be remembered as victims. Dostoevsky lacks emphasis on Alyona Ivanovna’s death to serve as a warning against those who hideaway like hermits in order to avoid connecting with others. Ignoring humanity and being caught up in greed will only keep one alive for as long as people are offended by them.

While Dostoevsky understandably negates compassion from Alyona, he also does not seem to provide her younger sister, Lizaveta, with the eulogy such a kind and gentle character deserves. Lizaveta lives her life as a servant to all, especially her sister. However, at the same time, she provides hope to people like Sonia, who she teaches about faith and scripture. Sonia remembers Lizaveta well due to their time spent uplifting one another. Simply Lizaveta’s attention towards the young girl stamps her into Sonia’s heart forever. With this, Dostoevsky demonstrates the power that comes with heart-to-heart conversations and the love that can grow out of small gestures of compassion.

Lizaveta’s death is also the murder that Raskolnikov regrets causing. While he can live with murdering an unloved recluse, he pains over his killing of Lizaveta. Because Lizaveta’s death was unexpected and uninvited, she has become the focus of the crime rather than Alyona (who is the reason for it). Dostoevsky shifts attention to Lizaveta in order to remark on the influence of character in such a tragic event. While neither victim is truly deserving of being murdered, only the one that was kind to others is missed.

Crime and Punishment reveals the societal response to the greatest of crimes through time as uninterested if there is reason to understand its motives. When the victim has by any means called for such an act, society seems to forget and forgive; however, when murder is unjust and unexpected, society feels its memory of the victim burned into its heart. Lizaveta’s name is not shouted and paraded through the streets because Lizaveta was not strong enough to break away from her sister, but because she was kind and compassionate she is carried quietly in the minds of those who knew her.

What Role Does Catharsis Play In A Death?

While King Lear is filled with death, I found that those whose deaths would mean the greatest loss for their country had the least effect on me. I was surprised to find myself feeling most sorry for the nameless servant who stood up for Gloucester against Cornwall. How is it that I care more for this servant than Lear, Gloucester, or even Cordelia? Well, I didn’t feel any catharsis during his death, only regret.

Lear redeems himself by rising from madness and restoring his relationship with his daughter, Cordelia. However, his death has an element of fairness to it because he still must account for his crimes against England (splitting it amongst his daughters) and his ribald behavior towards his daughters.

Gloucester’s death is more amusing than sad because he dies, tragically, of an overly joyous heart. I couldn’t help but feel happy for the man because although he treated his son, Edgar, horridly, he apologized and could accept his circumstances with a smile.

While I feel pity for Cordelia, who dies while trying to rescue her father, I feel there is a certain burden carried by anyone who goes on heroic ventures; they know their deaths will become martyrdoms. I mourn for Cordelia, but I do not feel greatly saddened because she knew the perils of saving of Lear.

When it comes to Edmund, Cornwall, Regan, and Goneril, their deaths bring joy. Huzzah for the end of tyrants and what not.

Unlike all these characters, the servant had not treated anyone in the play poorly, he did not try to dominate others, and his heroic deeds were not planned, but instinctive. There is no catharsis from his death because he did nothing wrong. The servant’s only action was briefly fighting injustice. With this, he puts himself alongside all the nameless men and women who are remembered by those close to them for their local initiatives. With a quite demeanor, but a fierce moral standpoint, people like the servant engrain themselves into the hearts of those who witness their unexpected strength. It is the unexpected heroes that truly last forever.

Which Deaths Make Us Good?

Why would someone torture and exile himself in life if death is what he desires above all else? Even when all eyes are turned against him, Oedipus chooses that living as an unloved transient is a greater then death. Oedipus cannot allow his life to be taken because he understands the infinite power with which one’s death can over shadow one’s life.

While Oedipus is disgusted with his actions in life and would be alleviated by death’s embrace, he begs his brother-in-law, Kreon, “Drive me out of this country as quickly as may be to a place where no human voice can ever greet me” (1383). Oedipus understands that if he accepts death, he will instantly imprint his last actions on his memory and soul. Oedipus has the chance to create a life for himself equal in fame to his years of dredging through sin. Only by continuing to live, even if as a nomadic outcast, can he find the opportunity to find redemption.

What is unfortunate about Oedipus’s predicament is that were he to have died early, he’d be remembered as a great man. Oedipus saved his Kingdom from the Sphinx, he left his home in order to protect his parent’s fate, and he looked over every rock in an attempt to discover the last king’s murderer and protect his city from the plague. Oedipus was a great man, but he was struck down by fate. The varying times when Oedipus could have died reveal the role of death in a man’s history.

Oedipus could have died as a hero protecting his family and country, or as a fiend – hated by the Gods. Oedipus is not an example of who death can make a man memorable, but he is the epitome of how death works in making a man admirable.

Oedipus’s exile will give him the chance to become a man of inspiration, once again. Only by passing on at the right moment will Oedipus’s death be remembered as the death of a good man.

How Will I Compare?

Will people remember me when I die? After the wind has long since scattered my body throughout old stomping grounds and places etched with distant memories, will people remember me? How do you determine who will be in sung in songs, immortalized in text books, or cherished in hearts and minds for years after passing? Is it based on how one lives a life, or ends it? By looking into humanity’s soul through universally shared literature, cultural trends, historical events, as well as current ones, we begin to explore which deaths are mourned throughout the ages and which become swept aside into time’s hands. Understanding why society has held the memories of certain people, and not others, answers the questions how do we measure the significance of a death and does one death hold more value then another?

Looking to literature, both major and minor characters have brought readers to tears as they pass. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, creates emotional ends for his characters. These ends possess the power to weaken or fortify his fictional town of Macondo. The men and women who embrace death like an awaited friend, such as Amaranta, Col. Aureliano Buendia, and Remedios the Beauty, draw Macondo into awe and nostalgia. Characters who die abrasively and without warning – the Jose Arcardios – are emblazoned in memory but not necessarily for the lives they lead, but for the necessity to end their existence. Those who accept death, in the eyes of Marquez, can inspire others to relinquish fear while those who attract death solicit infamy.

The line separating death’s value is not clear when reexamined. Col. Aureliano Buendia was lucky to escape death for so long. Had he died in any of his thirty-two civil war campaigns, he’d be remembered as a hero forever. However, his death as a tired veteran removed the significance from his memory. Without a brilliant end, his memory no longer sticks in Macondo’s mind. In life, Amaranta was bitter and vicious towards all who tried to befriend her, but her acceptance of death and promise to meet it with letters from the town to deceased loved one’s renamed her a heroine. Arcadio, was an innocent nobody except for his small dictatorial regime over the town which lead to his execution. Marquez blurs the line between a person’s value as a human and value as a tombstone. The power of dying is so potent it can change the memory of an entire existence. Death seems to be the driving force of memory. This means that in order to live forever, we must figure out how to die immortally.

Marquez doesn’t answer the question of how to measure death; he simply proves that death is an important part of our impact on society. The real answer to comparing one death’s value to another lies deeper in human culture and civilization.

Look at the effects of Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Both tragedies are remembered for the many Americans who perished. But, how many individual names are remembered every year? Would those deaths have mattered were they not clustered together? Maybe it’s the volume of deaths that create significance rather than the person.

Lincoln and Kennedy’s assassination is still remembered while few people know that we’ve had two more presidents assassinated, as well. Is it the fact that Kennedy’s was viewed on national TV to a great audience or Lincoln’s was right after one of two wars on the home front? Who’s to say that without their future policies would’ve held more value then McKinley’s or Garfield’s? Maybe the number of witnesses makes death more significant.

My grandpa was sheriff of Arapahoe County and died a decade before I was born. Even though his funeral procession measured two miles in length, few people, including myself, know much about him. What’s kept his death from having the memory span of a kidnapped child, or a movie star?

Looking at classic movies and novels, reviewing popular and controversial eras, and studying humanity as a whole, I hope to answer how we can learn what will make our lives brought up in conversation for ages and our deaths kept in mind year after year.