The modern writers

The modern writers

Among the subjects which have been treated most frequently in literature, death has been part of them, commonly as a plot device, symbol, or a theme. It has been one of the crucial elements for modern writers, dramatists as well as novelists. Interweaved with the literature origin itself and the human consciousness on mortality, it has provided an Impetus for reflecting on the meaning, causes and the nature of life. And, while death treatments have been varying depending on the authors, researchers have observed in modern works, whether for stage, prose fiction, or in verse; a clearly defined attitudes towards the topic which has nearly a universal interest.

The modern writers have, in most of their works presented death as an ultimate dilemma, and one which provokes terrible concerns as it gives an avenue towards authentic and self-discovery. Similarly, death has also been perceived within the wider context, to be part of natural cycle of both decay and restoration, or taken as a source of amusement, chosen for a humorous conclusion by black comedy writers and absurdist tragedy, who nonetheless identify the seriousness of the subject. In addition, death in literature has also proved to make a number of symbolic inferences. Over the past few years, it has been aligned with ideas such as withdrawal into solipsism, alienation, escape, and eventually with sources of meaning as well as creation of the literature itself.

In modern novels and short stories, death has been given a nearly ubiquitous position. For example, critics as observed in the work of Franz and Lawrence have shown an obsessive concern on human mortality, which results to a state of alienation, worry, and potential retreat to spurt the omnipresent powers of both death and decay. In the modern works, death has been frequently associated with the solipsistic people, relative to whom internal and external powers collude and symbolically excluding them from humanity. Scholars have also acknowledged the fact that the intense study undertaken by the Modernists on death subject gives some writers an opportunity to comprehensively understand life.

For a writer like Italo Svevo in his “Confessions of Zeno (1923)”, his contemplation on human mortality paved a way to the understanding individual identity and provided for an inherent life meaning. Contemporary era writers have also engrossed on the comical death qualities under “black humor” fiction to depict the meaning of life. Making use of death pretext as an inescapable part of human comedy, writers such as Donleavy in “The Ginger Man (1955),” Kurt, Jr. in “Slaughter-house Five, (1969)” and Thomas in “Gravity’s Rainbow(1973),”  used death subject as ironic metaphor to depict  life and art in twentieth century. In their writings, just like other contemporary writers, death pervades their stories and their protagonists’ minds, and gives a ridiculous commentary on conciseness and meaninglessness nature of human life and finality of deaths.

Symptoms of a black humor fiction stretches beyond the genre margins to drama, from writers of contemporary tragicomedy and theater  proponents of absurd exemplified by the likes of Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter scrutinize the humorous nature of death. The critics have undergone diversity, especially, in the works of dramatists. This ranges from Beckett, whose pessimism under incomprehensibility face demonstrates laughter as an appropriate response towards violence and hopelessly ridiculous universe, to Ionesco, whose tragicomic rotates around death critics, discern and affirmation of life.

Other play writers, like O’Neill and Williams, dealt with the death subject as a defining factor of stage tragedy. Criticized by Armato, who described Williams’s works, among them “The Night of the Iguana (1961)”, as a poet’s pursuit for a way out of the problems resulting from a man’s consciousness of death inevitability. Elsewhere, Feldman described death as depicted by the characters in the O’Neill’s “Mourning Becomes Electra (1931)” as an escape from interminable difficulties of life.

Additionally, the literary works “Death of a Salesman” by Arthur Miller has dealt with the theme of death and revealed different perspectives of death as portrayed by different people. In his work, the protagonist or the characters in his work have revealed their perspectives on the inevitability nature of death and its causes as well. Across this work of Arthur Miller, he managed to demonstrate how different lifestyles could lead to different types of death. In this poem, the writing style reveals Arthur Miller’s viewpoint on death and certain causes of deaths. Besides, Marxist criticism has been scrutinized in the “Death of a Salesman” to expose the effects individual class within the society settings and his or her death.

Dylan Thomas in his “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” categorized man into four: wise men; the good men; the wild men; and the grave men, describing the perspectives of the four who lived different lifestyles. Each of the four men had their own perspective of death in accordance to their different lifestyles. Besides their opinions, the poem revealed the speaker’s attitude on death and the way it should be dealt with.

Wise man, which is the first category according to Dylan Thomas, understands and accepts death as inevitable. The wise men were probably scholars with knowledge, the reason behind their acceptance of death. However, they resist death because of what they have to offer to world.   Good men on the other hand are the people living their life morally, at their point of death, it is realized that good deeds cannot change anything and people tend to cry a lot. The wild men, who live their life to the fullest, they rarely realize that they will die one day until when their death approaches for them to realize how they lived a life of sorrow and grief. Lastly, the grave men approach death with physical blindness. They know and understand death as the final step to their life and before such a step they strive to do everything within their ability to have the advantage of their lifetime. According to speaker’s explanation of the four men across the whole people, the inevitability of death has been clearly revealed.

Such tragic reactions towards death support the serious moods that tend to prevail in literature especially when tackling the subject of death. Critics have indicated that such an attitude can be best epitomized in the contemplations of twentieth century poetry writers, a group including writers such as Plath, Sexton, Lowell, and Berryman. For some of them, notably Sexton and Plath, death as a way of understanding life in general is of great importance. According to the works of those introspective authors, mortality acts as a defining sensibility, which is deeply rooted to a personal experience on anguish of life and that of death; a very intense experience for Sexton and Plath to an extend of culminating their own suicides.

Work cited

Derrida, Jacques.  Death, & Literature in Secret. University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Thomas, Dylan. “Do not go gentle into that good night.” Botteghe Oscure (2012).

Miller, Arthur, et al. Death of a Salesman. Kultur, 2014.

Williams, Tennessee. “The Night of the Iguana. 1961.” The Theatre of Tennessee Williams 4          (2016).