Literary Theme Of Death In Literature

The theme death has always played a crucial role in literature. Death surrounds us and our everyday life, something that we must adapt and accept. Whether its on television or newpaper, you'll probobly hear about the death of an individual or even a group. Most people have their own ideas and attitude towards it, but many consider this to be a tragic event due to many reasons. For those who suffered greatly from despair, living their life miserably and hopelessly, it could actually be a relief to them. Death effects not only you, but also those around you, while some people may stay unaffected depending on how they perceive it.

In these three literary pieces a prevalent theme is death. Death may be defined as the end-ing period of physical life. However, throughout the development of these stories, it was possible to distinguish plenty of physical but even non-physical death as well. This absolutely

The prevalence and description of death and deathbed scenes and its importance as a plot device is omnipresent to nineteenth-century literature. Death was everywhere and mortality rates were high, especially in children, not all parents expected their children to survive their early years (Da Sousa Correa, p.10). Additionally, maternal death rates were high with women dying, often leaving the baby, and other children in the family from previous births, with a widowed husband. Thus, authors often used the death of a child to stress the importance of innocence and the value of childhood; the author often expressing the sole reason of a child dying was that they would pass to a better world. Furthermore, nineteenth-century England was in the midst

Society has been dominated for centuries by a relentless amount of distinctions that have separated mankind in nearly any area of life. From features to wealth, physical entities that define classes of people continually craft the world with an inherent structure that disables any two individuals from achieving equality. However, there is one event that shatters the confines of this rigid world. Death. However, Hurston attacks this notion of death as the great equalizer of the society as to depict a world where racism seeps into all aspects of one’s existence. After the hurricane in which Tea Cake and Janie worked tirelessly to escape its wrath, they are exposed to a world with a greater resemblance to hell than the place they once called home.

In “The Lives of the Dead”, Tim O’Brien talks about his fourth day in the war. He begins to reminisce on when his platoon fired into a village in the South China Sea. After seeing dead bodies, he beings to tell Kiowa about his first puppy love that he experiences when he was nine years old. O’Brien compares his childhood experience with Linda his first love with the war. Given that he seen a dead man in a pigpen laying down and brought the memory of his first love Linda lying in a casket.

Death and dying are major components of gothic literature. In order to rehabilitate, you are compelled to acknowledge the pain of the person you have lost. People also deal with death by understanding that their grieving process is unique to them. Also by understanding the difference of grief and depression. The characters in the stories deal with death like the examples shown above. It also takes some people a little longer than others to heal themselves from their loss.

In the poems “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”, by Emily Dickinson and “Home Burial”, by Robert Frost, literary elements are used throughout both poems to get the message the authors are trying to portray. One main important literary element that is used to entice the reader, is symbolism, because it helps the authors describe something without actual describing it. Symbolism is also used because it shows how significant an object is. Characterization is also an important literary technique because it, gives the reader an idea on how the character would act, work, and their values in life. Death is a topic that is used in both poems. Also, every character express their opinion about death differently.

Picture this. The father of modern crime and detective stories, known as Edgar Allan Poe, is sitting down about to write a beautiful piece of writing and BAM! He whisks away into a story of love, death, and just plain out horror; either characters are losing someone near and dear to their hearts or they are plotting to kill. Edgar Allan Poe, at a very young age, lost both of his parents, and later on in life, lost his wife to tuberculosis, so in one way or another, these stories reflect off of his personal experiences. A major theme in Poe’s writings is death. The theme of death is seen throughout the works of Annabel Lee, the Cask of Amontillado, the Raven, and the Black Cat.

For years and years; death was something that people saw as the only “gateway” to what they believed to be the afterlife or heaven. Believing that god would grant them access to heaven if they were to live holy and sinless lives. However towards the beginning of the 20th century this belief started to weave towards the belief that the afterlife would be the eternal end of ones life on physical earth, with some even believing that there wouldn’t be an afterlife. This all leaded to people overall living happier and longer lives. This all inspired a type of writing style called modernism; to be more specific Neo-romanticism. One of the most famous writers of this genre was Dylan Thomas who famously wrote And Death Shall Have No Dominion. This poem contains the characteristics of the beliefs of Neo-Romanticism by showing that even though death must happen, it mustn’t be something that one just lets stroll by and take them away. Because the belief is that death should be avoided in order to live the longest, fullest, and happiest life possible.

Moreover, these complications even stem over to Henry’s guilt about the war. After arriving in Switzerland, Henry states, “The war seemed as far away as the football games of some one else’s college. But I knew from the papers that they were still fighting in the mountains because the snow would not come” (FTA, 291). Even in Switzerland, Henry cannot escape hearing about the war. While when he escapes the war, Henry cannot escape the guilt of deserting his friends, showing that his inner truth is not that simple. Even his inner meaning from existentialism has complications. With this idea, Friedrich Nietzsche states, “‘All truth is simple.’ Is that not doubly a lie?” This dichotomy between the simple and the complicated demonstrates nihilism’s

Death in literature is a hit or a miss. It can either be a powerful tool to completely ramp up (or down) the plot, or it can be a horribly cliche and lackluster scene that drives away interest. John Steinbeck is one of the authors who has shown himself to be a competent author when it comes to this topic, and his two novellas The Pearl and Of Mice and Men demonstrate his usage of it to the fullest.

"My personal impression is that he died without understanding his death" (Marquez 101). The above statement is stated by the narrator in Marquez's text. The novel, Chronicle of a Death Foretold tells the story of the narrator's return in a small Colombian town in the 1950's to resolve the details of the murder of his close friend, Santiago Nasar, who is a handsome and wealthy man, who is dead due to Anglea’s lies. Angela Viscario is a beautiful girl, who is not a virgin. She lies about Santiago taking her virginity, due to this false statement, her twin brothers Pedro and Pablo Viscario decide to kill him to restore the family's honor. In the book Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Santiago Nasar is a victim of murder

In Mrs. Dalloway, references to life and death are seen frequently throughout the entire novel. It would not be correct to claim that Mrs. Dalloway focuses more on one or the other, for the novel brings attention to both life and death. Virginia Woolf exhibits these profound ideas through the thoughts of her characters in Mrs. Dalloway. The thought of death is constantly lurking in the thoughts of each character, and it makes even the most ordinary events become meaningful, and sometimes threatening.

Although a scene of a funeral home might come to mind when a reader first hears a short story aptly named “The Dead,” the tale actually takes place in the festive setting of a winter dance at the home of the two aunts of the main character, Gabriel Conroy. James Joyce’s short story “The Dead” has a literal title, because its main concept is death – both physical death and spiritual death.

In Gabriel García Márquez’s novella Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Santiago Nasar is ruthlessly murdered by the Vicario brothers-Pedro and Pablo Vicario-in a remote Colombian town. Although the Vicario brothers are responsible for the murder, i.e. the actual killing of Santiago, the behind-the-scene culture, in particular the town’s beliefs, ideals and expectations, should be blamed for Santiago’s death. Aspects of the town’s culture, including the sanctity of pre-marital virginity and honor, drive the characters to perform the murder of Santiago.