Thursday, April 23, 2015
So much Death!!!
Throughout this semester, one of the main themes that I interpreted from the selected texts is death and more specifically death when one isn't able to express their true selves (for whatever reason). It came up in The Awakening, Edna wasn't able to be the independent, free woman that she wished to be and saw her only escape as death. Bruce, in Fun Home, wasn't able to accept his sexuality and also saw death as his only escape. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao also contained a character who saw death as his only way out of a life where he was unhappy with himself. I think it was a great text to end with, because unlike the others, Oscar's death ended up feeling more meaningful, at least in my personal interpretation. He was finally able to accept himself, yes he still died, but at least it wasn't a death filled with resignation.
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Morgan, I definitely agree that there has been a lot of death throughout all of these texts. I also really like the point you make about Oscar's death being more meaningful. I do not necessarily agree that his is the only meaningful death, but I do like the idea of thinking about who had meaningful deaths.
ReplyDeleteI recognized death as a theme in a lot of the texts that we discussed this semester as well. I would add to your list "Old Woman Magoun," because Lily's death was used as an escape from Nelson Barry and Jim Willis.
ReplyDeleteI feel that in a way this death was the empowering factor of these novels. If we think about it, the death that happens in majority of these pieces are self-controlled. Edna takes her own life, Oscar gives up his own life, the No Name Woman sacrifices herself and her child to sustain from harassment. I think that death was a valuable aspect of these literary pieces because they allow these characters to take back the sense of independence that was originally taken from them by society and culture.
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking about this reoccurring theme the other day. I found that the deaths made the works of literature more memorable to me. The stories we read with happy endings did not leave as much of an impact on me. Death is a scary topic to dive into, but it opens a realm of questions for the audience to try and tackle.
ReplyDeleteI felt like a lot the deaths were a little Romanticized. The books themselves did a good job at depicting the real struggles of each character, but I felt that ended when the death scenes started. Most were disturbing, but I still couldn't help thinking "this ending is fitting." So it kind of took away the seriousness of the deaths for me.
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