English Notes: Section B - Death

I figured I'd plan out a couple of Section B questions from the list that we got sent, because a few people have asked for Lawrence/TKR notes, and this seems the easiest way to kill two birds with one stone. I'm doing these one-per-post, I don't know how many I'll do, and I'm picking them at random - apart from this one, which I planned in history because death is what I'm interested in. But anyway, as usual, this is a very brief/basic plan, likely to be riddled with mistakes (can't say I've quite got to grips with Section B yet, and bluddy hell I hate TKR), but here it is, as promised, anyway. Oh, and I'm going to do all 4 authors for each question, even though it's unlikely I'll have Tennyson left over for Section B.

Sidenote: I totally advise everyone to go and reread all the Lawrence stories - I had only properly read them about once, and you miss/forget some of the actual interesting shit when you're just skimming through for quotes/techniques. Or maybe that's just me being a twat, I don't know.

'What is the significance of death in the work of three writers you have studied?

Tennyson: Tithonus
I'd say that in this poem the repetition of death stuff is important in highlighting Tithonus' predicament and pain - it is all he can focus on; he speaks constantly of how he longs for it, and how he has lost his humanity/real sense of self by losing his power to die, and is consumed by jealousy for the natural death cycles occurring in the world around him. We can tell from the first stanza he is totally preoccupied with death; 'the woods decay, the woods decay and fall...and after many a summer dies the swan' - he sees death in everything, sees it as an integral part of the lives of all this natural shit, but he doesn't have that, 'me only cruel immortality' - his inability to die makes him feel distinctly unnatural. Similarly, later on he talks of 'happy men that have the power to die, and grassy barrows of the happier dead' - ironic, almost paradoxical - we don't normally think of death as a 'power', rather as something external that people passively submit to, often against their own will. In fact, it's not usually the 'happy men' that require this 'power' anyway. What's ironic is that he has been given the greatest 'gift', the greatest 'power', to escape death itself, and yet it has taken everything from him and made him feel so powerless. By referring to death so frequently and constantly bringing things back to Tithonus' wish for Aurora to 'let [him] go' and let him die, Tennyson gives us a real sense of Tithonus' longing, regret, and disillusionment with his current state - death is what separates him from the rest of nature; and 'why should a man desire in any way to vary from the kindly race of men?'.

Browning: Porphyria's Lover
What I find most significant about death in Porphyria's Lover (and one of the main reasons that I like this poem) is that it is presented as positive and desirable; her 'darling one wish' and 'utmost will', and this can shape our judgement of the lover's actions, and his own character - is he delusional? Compassionate? Immoral? I'm really into this personally, as I think we live in a society that has an irrational 'prejudice' and fear towards death/those who would rather die than live ('Viviocentrism' - a term coined by Mitchell Heisman in his 1900 page suicide note), BUT enough of my personal views on suicide/death. In this poem death is presented as a beautiful, almost erotic act - a key part of her beauty/sexual appeal (her hair) is what is used to strangle her 'in one long yellow string...three times her little throat around' - the act of killing sounds delicate, and then her dead body is described even more lovingly that her living form - 'blushed bright beneath my burning kiss', 'the smiling rosy little head' - from the lover's point of view, at least, death has preserved, even enhanced, her beauty (and, as this conflicts with our commonly-held view of reality, ie that he's holding a mangled corpse, gives us insight into his delusional, perhaps psychotic character). He is also 'quite sure she felt no pain', and this (coupled with the stuff about it being what she wanted) glorifies death as something painless and desirable - a way to transcend the corporeal world and reach a state of perfection. This presentation of death is significant in that it forces us to challenge our preconceptions about death, love, and morality - Is this murder immoral? Or the greatest act of love? Is he 'evil' and possessive? Or vulnerable and compassionate despite his warped mental state?

Lawrence: Odour of Chrysanthemums 
In Odour of Chrysanthemums, death is used spark an 'epiphany' of sorts in Elizabeth; a realisation of her true situation, relationship, and self - and by extension illuminate the same things to us; highlighting to us the false, fabricated life she had convinced herself she was living. There are a million and one quotes that work for this - this whole bit is quite poetic really. Seeing Walter's dead body finally opens Elizabeth's eyes to the fact that she had never really known him at all; they had a false relationship of frustration and bitterness, but founded on what? She had never properly got to know him, she merely 'fought in the dark' with a distant figure that she had chosen to demonise as a bad husband in order to further martyr herself - and now she is left with an unborn child, that's meant to represent the bonding and love of two people, but void of this feels like a dead weight, a stranger inside of her - 'The wife felt the utter isolation of the human soul, the child within her was a weight apart from her'. The contrast of her feelings when faced with Walter's dead body, and his mother's feelings, only further serves to show how 'false' they were as a couple - his mother sees him as 'clear and lean and white' and '[murmures] with pride', clearly seeing her son as pure and good, in death the same as he was as a newborn. Elizabeth, however, 'kept her face hidden', 'in fear and shame she looked at his naked body, that she had known falsely' - she is forced, by this death, to realise that she never saw the man for what he was, 'she had denied him what he was', and her husband was more like a stranger to her. That said, perhaps their reactions to Walter's death show that, to both women, his adult self was distant and a stranger - even his mother talks only of him as a child, that's who she had the bond with, not this guy dead on the floor. (Note: All of this could be total bullshit, it's just sort of how it seemed to me when I read it, and I'm sort of shaky on the Lawrence stuff)

Kite Runner: Baba's death
I'd say the main significance of death in The Kite Runner is to facilitate Amir's development as a character - fitting in with the sodding 'Bildungsroman' genre (I bluddy hate that word) and further driving his quest for redemption. You can approach this from many angles; Hassan's death, Amir's mother's death, Sohrab trying to kill himself, or even something more abstract like the death of friendship - but I'm gonna be a bit of a pussy and go for 'Baba's death', as it's a little more clean-cut. Baba's death forces Amir to properly grow up and become his own person - he had always lived in the safety/security/shadow of Baba - '[his] whole life [he] had been "Baba's son."', and that was a comfort in a way (though also pressure) - Baba would sort his shit out for him, people would respect him for his father's reputation, etc But now he's on his own, and has to be his own man. He acknowledges that 'Baba couldn't show me the way anymore; I'd have to find it on my own', and (though he admits to being 'terrified') this does feel less weak than back when he was younger and thought Baba was gonna die from standing up to the Russian soldiers ('I'm done, then. I'm eighteen and alone...Where do I bury him? Where do I go after that?') - he seems more accepting of his role, although clearly scared that such a 'step-up' has been forced upon him. Also, he then goes to talk to Soraya for comfort, so clearly he's not 'alone' anymore even though Baba's gone - in fact, we are told that 'for the first time ever, Baba would be all alone', it's almost odd to hear Baba described as anything other than the strong, firm centre of everything, and to hear that a 'bear' had come along 'that he couldn't best'. Ultimately, Amir is now basically on his own and has to sort his own shit out and, while we can tell from his reaction to Baba's death that he's developed as a character since he was a child, it is still this death (of the figure that was essentially the whole driving force of the novel; it was for Baba's love that Amir let Hassan get raped) that forces him even further to mature and even further down the road on his quest for self acceptance.