Works of Literature

Some of the books we have read this year portray death and man's fear or lack of fear of death in different lights.

*Beloved by Toni Morrison, discusses the issues of life after death in the sense of spirits who continue to stick around after their death. Part of the story is about how Sethe felt that death was better than returning to slavery so she attempted to kill her children and suceeded in killing one of them. So for Sethe she feared slavery more than death, which brings a new perspective to the idea of what death is. The other part of Beloved that deals with life after death is how the child that Sethe killed, at firsts haunts 124 the house the Denver and Sethe live in, but later in the story this child takes the form of flesh and bones and returns to 124 as a grown person, and continues to haunt the occupants of 124, but this time in a different way. Beloved recounts her time in what seems to be the after life, and how she came to be of flesh. The supernatural nature of Beloved's appearance is just another way to view of what happens to people after they die.

*The Stranger by Albert Camus, also touches on the subject of death. Mersualt commits what seems to be a cold blooded murder, since he has not connection to the man he kills and nothing against him. However, Mersualt goes through trial and is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Mersualt slowly comes to grips with the fact that his life is over, and instead of fear he just wishes he knew more about executions and how they work. Mersualt realizes his fate and accepts it instead of trying to stop it. It is not clear why Mersualt takes this view of death other than throughout the book Mersualt is very apathetic to many things and very unemotionally attached, so why shouldn't he be apathetic and unemotional to his own death.

Limerick

We wrote Limerick's based on our Big Giant Question, Limerick's are supposed to be light and humourous, however writing a limerick on death seems really ironic, but I figured I would attempt to write a light humourous limerick on Deat.

Why does man fear death?
Especially when he takes his last breath
for instead of fear
live your life my dear
and don't end up like Macbeth.

Big Giant Question

This question is asked often, pondered on by all kinds of different races, creeds, and religions. Although the question is unanswerable it is always interesting to look at how each culture views it.

What is death? Why does man fear it?

The first question will never truly be answered, untill a person dies it is impossible to tell what will really happen to us after we die.

However the second part of this question is a practical question. Most people fear death, Why? Whether its the uncertainty of what lies ahead or the pain of leaving the world behind, at some almost every human being has been terrified to die.

For me I have always wondered what happens after death, or while a person is dying. When I was very little I was terrified of the dark, I thought that I could not see anything (there was difference in what i saw from when my eyes were closed to when they were open) that I was dead. I slept with as many lights on as my parents would allow. For me this is the stem of my curiousity about death. Everyone has an experience that has led them to question death, and what it means as well as what happens.

I have always wondered what death is, who hasn't though? It is a common asked questioned, commonly debated, and wondered about. However, I have never really considered why people fear death. It has only been very recently that I have myself come to grips with the fact that death can't be all that bad. Since my realizing that I am not afraid, I have been curious as to what causes people to be afraid of death.

This question always brings up great discussion. If you sat down to lunch with all your school or work buddies and brought up death, you would find many different types of views on it. Each person with a different religion or no religion at all will have a different reaction to this question:
Catholics and most Christian Religions would say that there is a heaven, with pearly white (or golden) gates that St. Peter guards and decides who gets into heaven and who does not. However each person in this religion might have a different view on what exactly Heaven is. Golden paved cities, eternal happiness and riches (and not necessarily riches of the material kind). Christians also generally believe in a hell (and the occasional Catholic believes in Purgatory). Hell also has many different views, the circles of Dante's inferno is one of them.
Jews in general believe that there might be a heaven, but the Torah specifically says that after death you will rejoin your ancestors (Abraham, Isaac, Moses, etc...) and the "wicked are cut off," They believe in both a Heaven and a Hell, and don't believe that one has to be Jewish to enjoy Heaven. Jewish belief houses several different views of heaven one which includes, golden tables feasts and sex, while the other focuses on purity of emotions and self. However, the Jewish view of Hell closely resembles that of Catholic Purgatory.
Buddhists believe in reincarnation or transmigration, where the soul of a person undergoes continuous birth and rebirth until the soul finds Nirvana which is liberation from this cycle of rebirth. The actual details of Nirvana are mostly mysterious, whether it is Heaven or nonexistence.
And many people who claim themselves to be Atheist or Agnostic simply believe that when the human body dies, and the organs and nerves that allow a human to function and be an aware being, the conscious unconscious "self" becomes non-existent, much like what a human is before it is conceived.

And these views are only a handful of religious beliefs of what happens after death. Not to mention all the beliefs that are not affiliated with any religion.

This question about death is very nebulas, And although it can never be answered it can be studied in literature and culture.