Why Death?
In the book In Search of Lost Time, the narrator describes to us his grandmother’s illness leading up to her death. The grandmother’s illness has made everyone kinder. It has even revealed relationships that were not visible prior to this situation. For a while, the grandmother’s eyes cannot see. After that, her eyes recover, but her ears cannot hear, and finally, when this condition improves, she develops a stutter. But through all these states, the grandmother tries to hide the weaknesses that are overcoming her. Until, with the onset of the stutter, she is forced into silence. Defeated by her own inability, she “would lie back on the bed with a grim, marble-like face, her hands motionless on the sheets.” After an attempt to kill herself and being stopped by others, the grandmother’s gaze gradually changes. A rebellious gaze full of regret turns into an expression of disbelief, and again, during a period of temporary recovery, her look becomes hopeful and relieved… Finally, immersed in a melody she unconsciously hums with her last deep breaths, with eyes that we do not know whether they see or not, she departs from this world. And “Death, like a medieval sculptor, laid her down in the guise of a young girl on that final deathbed.” The next chapter begins thus: “…all of life, untouched, lay before me.” (Proust, 1401 [2022])
Reading this section of Proust’s book and all the events that unfold in the atmosphere of another’s death made me wonder whether I, as a subject living about a century after him, have a different understanding of death? Why has this part of the book preoccupied me so much?
How Should We Deal with Death?
Three hundred years before the birth of Christ, Epicurus said that “…when we exist, death is not present, and when death is present, we do not exist; therefore, death is nothing to us.” A long time after him in the twentieth century, Martin Heidegger rejects his view; he believes it is not the case that death is nothing to us. He believes that instead of being indifferent to death—which is Epicurus’s intended response—one must confront the anxiety of death. (Wrathall, 1403 [2024]) To understand Heidegger’s argument, further explanation is needed, which we will address later. But this very shift in perspective from an ancient philosopher to a twentieth-century philosopher opens an important discussion regarding the trajectory of the evolving concept of “death” over time.
The History of Death
To become aware of the various ways of dealing with death, we turn to the book The Hour of Our Death [Persian title translated as History of Death] by Philippe Ariès, which examines the shifting attitude toward death as well as its related concepts.
In surviving texts from previous centuries, knights or monks needed a premonition to die. They would realize they were dying through natural signs or their own inner feelings, and thus would surrender their souls to death. Such a death can also be seen in literary works of subsequent centuries; for example, in the seventeenth century with the death of Don Quixote, who calmly felt his death approaching. This kind of death is one accompanied by acceptance; not eager and rushed, but calm and simple. In worlds filled with the supernatural, death appeared in this simple, unadorned manner; like the death of a knight with rituals indicating an acceptance of the situation. The dying person would lie down, open his hands, and face the sky. He might mourn his lost life, but only fleetingly. Because ultimately, he would remember God and consign the world and its affairs to oblivion. It is this very state that is seen in the funerary effigies of the twelfth century. A reflection of what such people did in the face of death: passing through the ritualistic path of accepting death and waiting in silence. This is a traditional view of death. It stands directly in contrast to our perspective today, where we forget death in our ordinary, everyday lives and flee from it when we see its signs. Our death today, whatever it may be, is not calm. (Ariès, 1401 [2022])
When someone passed away, how did people interact with them? In past eras, this relationship was not as peaceful as it is today. The “dead” had a terrifying nature for the living. To maximize the distance between the world of the dead and the living, they placed cemeteries at a vast distance from their settlements. Gradually, the dead found their way to the suburbs and into the vicinity of saints, and it was in the sixth century that the taboo of burying the dead in historic city centers and close to the spaces of the living was abolished. This, in turn, led to new rituals; decorated spaces and chandeliers made of bones. Little by little, the spaces of the living and the dead intertwined. The cemetery became a sanctuary where people would gather, and this situation continued at least until the seventeenth century; while people were digging up a grave to bury a newly deceased person and smelling the stench of corpses in the air, they concurrently went about their daily activities. It was as if death was something inextricably tied to life and did not drastically alter anyone. (Ariès, 1401 [2022])
This form of death, which required ceremonies and premonition, changed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. That ritualistic and theatrical death, which had become more important than individuals’ actions in life, acquired a strictly moral status during the religious reformations. That is, it was moral for a person to die peacefully and in a calm environment, and for the living and the dead to continue their existence at a rational distance. Although this belief was abandoned in the twentieth century.
Dying in the Twentieth Century
Unlike philosophers following Plato who tried to grasp the pure ideas behind the decaying and changing things we perceive in the world, Heidegger believed that phenomenology means encountering these very things as they manifest in experience. From his perspective, we understand the world under our own historical and social categories, and now, within the world of our possibilities, we are obliged to choose our way of life. For Heidegger, we either establish our relationship with our world in an authentic manner, or, to evade discovering the meaning of our life, we busy ourselves with what “the others” do. Since there is no definitively correct answer before us, we constantly grapple with the anxiety of choice and the acceptance of this responsibility. To escape this anxiety, we distract ourselves with pre-packaged answers. But if a being can confront its own death, it is then freed for authentic things (Parsa, 1402 [2023]). Here it is important to know that there is a difference between “demise,” meaning the cessation of bodily functions, and “death,” meaning the “loss of being-in-the-world.” Demise is the set of causes and events that lead to someone’s perishing. Someone’s demise is what preoccupies us. For instance, why did someone die? What did they say before dying? And so on. In this way, we constantly flee from the concept of death, the meaning of which has been concealed by everyday customs. The very customs that relegate death to the future and deem it terrifying. Death, according to Heidegger, is the “possibility of the impossibility of any way of the individual relating to things” and the absence of all states. Considering Epicurus’s statement mentioned earlier, one must note that although death is not a state that can be experienced, it is important because, as a kind of possibility, it influences our experience of the world and our relating to things. Thus, death is present for us. Death is an authentic possibility indicating an open future for which one can make choices. Because it individualizes us down to ourselves. It helps us, by taking it into account—rather than mourning it—to remember that we are separate from other beings and free from all the things that conventional matters impose upon us. (Wrathall, 1403 [2024])
My Death
We do not comprehend death by seeing a dying person; rather, we only see the outward manifestations of dying. Death cannot be a vicarious experience. For example, we might perceive the death of another in the form of something like the sorrow of the survivors over the loss. This means the understanding of this matter is as inaccessible to us as it is to the deceased. But one must consider it and reflect upon it. That is, instead of considering another’s death as an objective example and thinking that one’s own death will never happen or will occur far in the future, one must run ahead toward death and make choices in one’s own world.
Graves have seen many changes from antiquity to the present. Epitaphs shifted from texts that merely indicated the identity of a grave to tombs featuring statues and images of individuals, or transformed into lengthy texts detailing the life of the deceased. It was in the twelfth century that people’s attitude toward life underwent a change. Humanity began to think about the individuality of death. People no longer lived in the intertwining of life and death. Death had become a mirror of life for them. (Ariès, 1401 [2022])
For me, the death scenes of characters have always remained more prominent in my mind than other parts of a text. Death as deprivation from the possibility of living, like the death of Père Goriot, the death of Faulkner’s mother figure in As I Lay Dying, or the self-inflicted death of Ajax… I review them all in my mind. I know that although theorists like Deleuze have held completely different views on death after Heidegger, for me, Heidegger’s ideas resonate: namely, living courageously and authentically by keeping in mind my own death, which is my point of distinction from other beings. Saying “yes” to accepting the responsibility of life; saying “yes” to life itself. Death is just as important as my birth has been. My encounter with death in literary texts is perhaps just my desire to better understand a state that is necessary yet ambiguous to me. Perhaps it is sympathy with the deceased; with the face of Proust’s grandmother, whose piercing eyes are destined to hold no more light. Let death come and quietly turn her face into the stony visage of a statue, devoid of the possibility of any experience. All of these are reminders of the presence of death. Something we flee from.
Sources
Ariès, P. (1401 [2022]). History of Death. Tehran: Markaz Publishing.
Wrathall, M. (1403 [2024]). How to Read Heidegger. Tehran: Ney Publishing.
Parsa, M. (1402 [2023]). Translated Essay Collection: Heidegger and Death. Tehran: Shavand.
Proust, M. (1401 [2022]). In Search of Lost Time: The Guermantes Way. Tehran: Markaz.
You can read the Persian text on the Phoenix website.