The idea of death is accompanied not only by the way someone makes a loss, but it is also a theme in which the meaning is not present, which makes it responsible for the fear and denial suffered by many subjects. This phenomenon, which is inescapable to man, is capable of delineating crossings and connections between different areas of knowledge, thus enabling interesting and pertinent reflections. But death is not restricted simply to a conception of the body's end of life, but it is related to a psychic and social end.
But death can lead us to other reflections beyond what we commonly face. That is, it launches us to being sure there it will eventually come, without knowing much where it comes from, or where it leads us. Thinking about this, our research is divided into three moments that carry with them their singularities, but at the same time, their approximations, enabling dialogue between different fields of knowledge, but always having literature as a main guide.
Table of contents
1. Introduction
2. Brief historical and aesthetical portraits of the death's parade
3. Literary inscriptions of death in History
4. Conclusion
5. Bibliography
1. Introduction
Death acts indiscriminately, leveling all human beings to a single destiny. Its presence, regardless of the civilizations or the cultures, has intrigued, distressed, and terrorized on many occasions. There were moments when the search for ways to keep it out of sight was made present, and, the attempts to repress or cover it were recurrent, which contributed, for example, to the consolidation of taboos around death. Very rarely, this enigma that is the end of life had been a quiet phase of our own existence. Thus, each age, culture, and society re-signified death in their own ways, with their traditions, beliefs, and customs. However, perhaps, these behaviors have not been restricted to past times, since death has not yet been overcome or the secret to immortality has been discovered either.
First man (2017), a documentary that proposes to expose human biological evolution, highlighting the advances made by some of our great apes ancestors, outlines, in a very unique way, the way in which the end of life was received, for example, by the Toumai1. In one of its scenes, a baby Toumai is attacked by an alligator during the brief moments it is alone, making its death inevitable. Because she cannot assimilate what happened and by that reality fact being unintelligible to her, the mother drags the dead body of the baby for a while. This could shows us that, for her, there was no association between the lethal event and the fact that the baby's body no longer responds to the stimuli she provokes in it in order to awaken it to follow the flock.
It is clear that, until then, for that species, death still did not have the same meaning as the current of ours. Death establishes a limit of meaning that is insurmountable, leaving us to react primarily with denial – this behavior, which is portrayed on occasions when the baby has its body loaded – which begins the mourning. Naturally, the mystery that death carries remains, and, to feel in the reality less unsustainable and to try to create a sense to what comes after it, the Toumai watch over the dead body. It is also at this moment that we perceive the first possible indications of the funeral rites, which accompany us until contemporaneity.
But death can lead us to other reflections beyond what we commonly face. That is, it launches us to being sure there it will eventually come, without knowing much where it comes from, or where it leads us. Thinking about this, our research is divided into three moments that carry with them their singularities, but at the same time, their approximations, enabling dialogue between different fields of knowledge, but always having literature as a main guide.
The construction of a line of reflections begins with the realization that death was, and still is, for many writers, inspiration for the elaboration of their fictional narratives. Our proposal is based on observing, first of all, in a historically situated way, the way by which the notion of death can be described and assimilated into a few literary texts, from some of the Western epics to examples of contemporary testimony literature. Therefore, scopes were necessary, and some epochs and works were privileged, considering the limitations of each reading towards them.
The notion of culture was our starting point for the following section, as we believed that the post-war and its effects changed culture itself. In this sense, our gaze falls on some local traditions that have re-signified the idea of finitude, in confrontation with what was propagated by Eurocentric stand points, and, each with its own particularities, have been reintroducing death in its forms of native cultural manifestation. In order to illustrate this issue, we contemplate some elements of prominence from the African peoples, the Mexicans and the Amazonian Amerindians. It is also at this point in our chapter that other concepts, which are situated in the contemporary, are addressed.
We realize that death, besides being cultural, can be seen from an aesthetic perspective. In this way, we can grasp that it reflects something of the darkness, but, can also, when aesthetically represented, fit within what is sublime, even if it very presupposes or can reserve to expose something of the ugliness. The fine arts, literary texts and cinema fulfill this role of giving body and voice to death and from some examples listed, it is evidenced that it is not avoided or drawn always with macabre traits, but adornments that naturalize and put it back under another focus in the artistic ways of representation.
In order to dialogue, to theoretically support our research and to privilege literature, our focus is, throughout the second chapter, on Freudian psychoanalytical theory. We sought to discuss the understanding and conclusions distributed throughout some of his writings that, in a way, contributed to our thinking around death. We realized that in addition to culture, the theme also reverberates on our unconscious, revealing and justifying some behaviors of the human subject.
Going back to the reference on the documentary mentioned earlier, at a certain stage of the evolution of species, we are invited to watch the emergence of oral stories, when, around the campfire, hominids evoke the past, speak of the future, retell stories and imagine what may exist in lands that are beyond the horizon. Not long after this period depicted, the speech will be transmuted into writing, thus opening possibilities to explore the interpretive capacity and record reality with the very output of prehistory. Thus, it is in this place that literature, although archaic, will flow, move the human imaginary, and consolidate itself as a plural field. However, it is important to point out that this fact deserves to be highlighted because it is a change in the historical context of the period and, the stories told, whether with orality or writing, each in its time, remain alive instruments that instigate the of humanity dreams and imagination.
When we consider that literature allows our subjection, of individuals who think and speak, we realize that the viability of a dialogue between this letter’s arts and the field of knowledge developed by Sigmund Freud, is present. In addition, when we revisit some of the texts elaborated by the father of psychoanalysis, we note in them the strong influence of literature, visual arts, and sculpture.
We understand, therefore, that psychoanalytic theory, more specifically, that consecrated by Freud, is one of the fundamental elements that is auxiliar to us during the process of deciphering a literary work, considering that subjectivity crosses it and is present in both psychoanalytical and literary fields of knowledge.
Overtime, the search for answers to the mysteries surrounding our existence has become inevitable, as have the questions and explanations surrounding these found paths of knowledge. Freud, by pointing out his understandings about culture in some texts, develops ideas that deal with the taboo of death and the treatment given to the dead by civilization. Moreover, in the midst of the context of war, he reflects and questions about human attitudes and the destruction we were able to cause to ourselves, and states that in our unconscious the inscription of death does not occur, because we cannot deal with it fully. Angst and fear in the face of uncertainty dominate us, and denial turns into an alternative indelible. Therefore, we hardly see it as something proper to our nature, although it remains to be.
The elaboration of possible antidotes against the certainty of death can be commonly observed at the heart of various cultures, and religions do not distance themselves from this place of creating relief responses. Freud, by mentioning, in general, religious ideals, weaves criticisms and questions them, besides considering religiosity as a simple illusion.
In the same way that it constitutes itself as a relevant cultural element, death is also revealed in our psyche. This is evident at the moment when we understand it as this phenomenon capable of representing absence, loss and separation. Grief, this affection that comes when a loved one dies, carries with it a series of coping phases, which are characterized as behavioral reactions. In this sense, melancholy can also happen as a process of psychic collapse and, in its turn, manifests some characteristics in a distinguished way that allows us to differentiate it from mourning.
2. Brief historical and aesthetical portraits of the death's parade
When we believe that death is an element that allows us countless looks, some choices were necessary for these initial reflections. We try to understand it in its relationship with the individual in some historical, social, artistic, cultural and literary aspects, even though, at a certain point, these elements are intertwined with each other.
To historically situate death puts us before a multiplicity of political, social, cultural and ideological issues. Thus, to emphasize the main axis of our work, the beginning of our thoughts was constructed from a historical demarcation based on literature. Our clipping followed a chronology that favored epochs and works that contemplated the many looks cast over death, ranging from some epics of canonical reference to some examples of contemporary prose, and framing our readings specifically until the period of the post-Second World War.
The post-war generated a new configuration in the notion of culture. In view of this, at that time, non-Eurocentric local traditions gained ground and the notion of finitude of life was resignified, for example, by the rescue of knowledge of Africans, Mexicans and Amerindians of the Amazon, with their beliefs and ways of elaborating such an idea. But, moreover, contemporaneity has also problematized the causes and effects of the two great wars and the conception of "culture of death" has become pertinent, especially for the continued reflection on death. With this, we chose to briefly discuss the concepts of necropolitics, end of the individual and social death.
When we perceive the human search for formal representation to death, we have, in the last part of the discussions proposed in our reading, art in some different manifestations, more specifically the third, the sixth, the seventh, the eighth and the ninth. Starting from the aesthetic concept of the sublime, as one that deals with the obscure and the dark, we understand that death is part of this place, but it can also be contemplated as belonging to the ugly. In view of this, we traced a path that was based on a selection of paintings on the visual arts, which were part of death, of texts of literature, that gave voice to it with the character, for example, and of photography and cinema that, each with its own points, also portrayed death.
3. Literary inscriptions of death in History
Like every social and cultural element, death also has its history. Since the first civilizations, it has been questioned, thought, represented, and worshiped. The transformations in the conception of the living ones in relation to the theme of the end of life, leads us to a reflection that takes place historically intended, so that it is necessary to privilege the changes, diseases, wars, religion, literature and some thoughts that were present and that marked each period, so that the notion of death, in each time, is rescued in an approximate clearway.
The relations that can be glimpsed between the history of the Western world and literature provide us with a starting point for reflection; the latter prioritizing their aesthetics, while the former presents its ways of delineate a period, which make them singular, but no less distant. History and literature preserve a memory and help in the construction of the identity of a people, for example. With this, we took a look at the way in which individuals integrated, assimilated and established a relationship with death, through the cultural artifact of writing.
Historically situated before the biblical texts and of Homer and Hesiod texts, the poem that narrates one of the versions of the myth of Gilgámesh has become an oldest fragment dating back to the year 2100 BC. He who saw the abyss has authorship attributed to Sin-léqi-unnínni (century 13th century BC) and presents us with the Acadian epic tradition in narrating the adventures, heroic deeds and existential experiences of the fifth king of Uruk, Gilgámesh, who had brought him to understand the limits imposed by human nature itself, until it is for someone like him, two-thirds divine and a third human. At one point in the poem, the goddess Arúru creates, from clay, the one who would assimilate to a primitive man, named Enkidú, and who should be up to the king of Uruk in order to retain his tyranny. However, after a battle, they come to become great companions.
Later, death shakes this friendship, leaving Gilgámesh bereaved by the friend who was gone, before the only certainty we carry with us, the brevity of human life, for "to be man, therefore, it is first of all mortal knowledge." (Brandão 254), and that there is no hope of saving ourselves from it. Thus, Gilgámesh, in the face of mourning, reflects and acquires consciousness: "Do I die and how Enkídu do not stay? /Mourning has entered my bowels, /Death I fear and by the vacant steppe." (Sin-léqi-unnínni 104)
The death of a hero, a similar aspect that also accompanies the history of other civilizations of Antiquity, is surrounded by a certain practice, of veiling and exalting the life of the dead. The preparation of funeral rites is the moment when offerings to the dead are presented. In the text, we perceive that there are the rites, honors, and offerings to Enkídu, in which Gilgámesh's participation is fundamental. Moreover, there is the belief that those who, in life, exercised a certain power before others, when they die, must divest themselves of their crowns, garments and adorns, and, totally naked, descend into the land of the dead without anything that puts them in a position of superiority (Brandão 254). It is clear, therefore, that the rites value spirituality more than materiality, whether of the body or what it has conquered in life.
The Mesopotamian tradition reveals to us that death was imposed on men by the gods without, of course, revealing to them the day when life would be heard. In this sense, Brandão states that there are two possibilities for the moment when the gods imposed such a phenomenon, referencing other writings. The first of these appears in the Prominent among kings, version of the ancient Babylon of the same poem, in which "death was imposed on humanity at the very moment of its creation" (Brandão 273). The second possibility is described in The Death of Bilgames (The Great Wild Bull), a Sumerian poem, in which there is the moment when the hero hears from the gods themselves the reason that led them to make the decision to deprive humanity of eternal life.
In Greece, where the tragic genre took its first steps, the burden of mortality is incorporated into many of his writings, including in epics, texts that have their importance recognized in the very definition of the universal canon.
Two great Greek epics produced during the archaic period of literature belonging to this civilization, whose works are situated in the interval that extends between the centuries VIII and V BC, reveal a theater of death and pain. The poems that mark this moment in Western history are Iliad and Odyssey, authored by Homer. These texts survived an oral tradition, which ensured their cultural consolidation and perpetuation so that in the 6th century BC., the narrative was translated into the written word.
The plans of the human and the divine are the basis for the construction of Homeric narratives. Heroes, those who represent humanity, have their deeds sung for the purpose of not being relegated to oblivion. The Gods determine the order of events – they are the cause and explanation –this conception of fate that could also be observed in the epic He who saw the abyss.
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1 From scientific name Tchadensis sahelantropus, the Toumai is the oldest fossil of a hominid discovered so far.