I was thinking about why mankind is so obsessed with death. We hear about it everyday through news and media, everyday life, and our literature. Constantly, the theme of death resonates. But why do we keep going back to that. Just looking at the New York Times you can easily find stories like:
2 Men Arrested in Chicago May Have Links to Mumbai Attack
By LYDIA POLGREEN
Investigators in India are retracing the steps of two men arrested in Chicago by the FBI to see if they helped plan the attacks that killed more than 160 people in November 2008.
OR...
Pirates Attack Maersk Alabama Again
LONDON — Seaborne raiders in a high-speed skiff tried again on Wednesday to commandeer the Maersk Alabama, the American-flagged ship seized by pirates in April, the United States Navy said.
In a separate episode, the captain of a hijacked chemical tanker was reported to have died of gunshot wounds inflicted when pirates seized the MV Theresa with 28 North Korean crew members northw est of the Seychelles on Monday. The spate of attacks reflected the increasing boldness of pirates roaming far from their bases in Somalia to seize vessels and sailors to hold for ransom.
Everywhere in all types of ways people are acting on death or talking about death or writing about death. Victor Frankenstien was so obsessed with the dead versus the living that it ultimately led to his great demise. But if death is so hard to handle in all different aspects why do we dwell? Shouldn't we focus on life itself? Or do we focus on death because it is the only reason why we have motivation to live fully? Even after Mary Shelly came Anne Rice then (God love) Joss Weadon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer in today's entertainment.
And how many tweens to moms across America are going to be watching the mid-night premere of Twilight Saga: New Moon? God knows I will be. But WHY??????? Isn't the HBO show True Blood just a serise about the living dead's soft porn?
Life and death is all around us and we can't stop obsessing with it in so many different outlets. Zombies, vampires, worms - is mankind doomed to forever focus on the unknown?
I really appreciated your post. Warning: forgive me if my answers lack the complete and sound responses that you seem to be searching for. I am still tossing your questions and my responses around in my head. However, I'll do my best.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Victor’s demise was due to his devotion to dead; he studied death to create life. However, I think his demise was also due to his inability to fully view his goal and his desire not to refocus it. Could we argue that it is because of this, Victor’s flaw, that resulted in Frankenstein being an imperfect creation?
Indeed, derived from death are various, universal questions that are often dwelled upon. I think this is partly due to human interest in the unknown. During murder cases, like in CSI Miami and Sherlock Holmes, the main goal is not only to catch the killer but also to determine how the murder was committed. These interests are all developed from the death.
In Victor’s case, his obsession with death was to study life. He realized that he needed to explore and comprehend (ignoring Frankenstein’s flaws) both didactic elements of life to see their parallels.
Thus, for those who write novels, poetry, and songs, as well as those who enjoy solving murder mysteries share their interests in death and life. I always find it interesting when I see examples of these aspects of life because they often teach us something important.
Cait,
ReplyDeletePerhaps our obsession with Death is Manfredian: we have an unquenchable curiosity for the unknown.
I have always been interested with the concept of Death (but aren’t we all?), and I think that my interest can best be summed up in a statement that Janelle made last semester in my Reading Poetry class. We were discussing Dylan Thomas’s “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” and Janelle remarked that Death is the moment that we’ll never experience, an obvious yet wonderful point.
Death is less-than-ephemeral, it seems: at one point, you’re alive, moving closer and closer towards Death, and then poof! Death occurs, but in such a fleeting way that you don’t even realize that it happened. And then, well, you’re dead.
Thus Death is the inappreciable moment bridging the gap between Life and Afterlife.
Cait,
ReplyDeleteI thought over my comment again, and I realize that I had a bit more to say.
Your blog also reminded me of Wordworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," where WW discusses the idea of preexistence. It seems to me that each great artist has his or her own conception of Death, a conception that possibly reflects that artist's own values. We can certainly see this with WW, who, at least in "Intimations of Immortality," seems to believe that Life is just a fragment of our immortal, eternal existence.
Also, if you're interested in the concept of Death, then I suggest that you check out Philip K. Dick's 1969 novel Ubik. In Dick's novel, we learn that human beings enter a "half-life" state after they die. In this "half-life" state, they are still inanimate corpses yet their brains remain active. Thus, humans (via a fictional technology) can still communicate with the dead. It's wacky to say the least.
And, if you don't trust my advice, Ubik is on Time's 100 Greatest Novels of the Twentieth Century, so I'm certainly not the only one that approves of it.
(Last thing)
ReplyDeleteAnd if you read Ubik, then you might ask yourself what this does for Romanticism. We have corpses still displaying cephalic activity---What does this do to natural decay? What does this mean for Blake's longing to transcend the corporeal world?
Sorry for all the strange comments.
I think one of the obvious answers is that we always obsess over the things that we can not explain or things we do not know about. Though we have all dealt with death in one form or another, none of us have experienced death itself and because of this, we have no idea what it is like to die or what actually happens after. No one can tell us what it is like for obvious reasons as well so we just keep wondering and wondering what it is and this turns into an obsession. I also think that the more and more we think about death and these imaginary ideas of it culture has given us, we are not as afraid. If death is anything that Buffy, Twilight or horror movies show us it is, then I am certainly not afraid.
ReplyDeleteSarah,
ReplyDeleteBut if Death is an inappreciable, possibly inexperienceable (not a word, I know) moment, is Death really anything at all? Can we even say "Death is" if it has no moment, no period of time by which we could measure it (assuming we could)? Isn't the jump from Life to the Afterlife seemingly immediate? What is Death really?