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The Dilemma of Death Literature, Art and Film Connections
Edvard Munch
Everyman Fellowship assures Everyman that he will accompany his friend wherever he is going, but when he hears of the destination, Fellowship declines. He offers women and good times, but he will not go on a journey to face God’s judgment
Pride: excessive belief in one’s own abilities Envy: the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, goods, or situation Gluttony: desire to consume more than one requires Lust: a craving for the pleasures of the body Anger: the individual spurns love and opts for fury Greed: the desire for material wealth Sloth: the avoidance of physical work Seven Deadly Sins
Goods Everyman turns to Goods, for whom he has committed so many of the sins that weigh heavily upon him. Goods cannot leave earth’s bounds; what man acquires on earth must be left behind.
Fellowship abandons Everyman Relatives abandon Everyman Everyman becomes aware that he has trusted in the wrong things What will he do now? Betrayed
Everyman asks Good Deeds for help, but Good Deeds is weak, collapsed at Everyman’s feet. Good Deeds is incapacitated by Everyman’s sins and cannot help.  Good Deeds
Knowledge takes Everyman to visit Confession, where he learns that repentance of his sins is the means to salvation. Acknowledging his sins, the burden is lifted from Everyman’s soul Knowledge
In addition to Knowledge, Everyman now has the companionship of Discretion, Beauty, Strength, Five Senses Discretion, Beauty, Strength, Five Senses
Everyman prepares to meet Death Beauty abandons Everyman Strength departs from Everyman Discretion leaves Everyman Five Senses abandons Everyman Knowledge departs from Everyman Only Good Deeds remains with Everyman for the final journey End of the Journey
An Angel Attends Everyman
An Angel greets Everyman to escort him to the Final Judgment, where only Good Deeds can speak for him.  All men must make this journey
“O Death, you come when I had you least in mind.”
Sudden destruction will come upon them…they shall not escape. Devastation, pestilence, fatal, hideous, horror of blood, sharp pains, profuse bleeding, scarlet stains, victim, disease = The Red Death The signature marks of The Red Death: Redness of the blood Scarlet stains Death occurs within thirty minutes of infection
Prince Prospero, has summoned a thousand of his “lighthearted friends” to join him in a “castellated abbey” which has strong and lofty walls and “gates of iron.” Outside the ‘secure fortress’ Red Death rampages and decimates its victims Allusion—Prince Prospero—Shakespeare: In the Tempest Prospero  realizes his short comings and is transformed. However, in the “Masque of the Red Death,” Prospero is destroyed because of his hubris Happiness and Prosperity
Perhaps one of the most vivid examples of hubris in ancient Greek literature is in Homer’s Iliad,  Another example is in Oedipus Rex. Oedipus meets King Laius of Thebes. Oedipus kills King Laius who is his biological father. He then marries his mother, discovers what he has done, and gouges out his eyes because of his guilt and shame.  In The Odyssey Odysseus incurs Poseidon’s wrath for blinding Polyphemus, Poseidon’s son; Odysseus is then punished for his actions Greek Theater and Hubris
And the high fortifications of his walls he will bring down, lay low, and cast to the ground, to the dust Folly and futility People try to escape death However, Death is a foe we cannot escape
Poe uses unity of effect, in this case a closed room and high exterior walls, to give the impression that there is no escape from impending doom Unity of effect is the emotion that the text conveys The term was coined by Edgar Allen Poe.The revelers are locked inside high walls and the gates of iron; they are further enclosed by the seven halls The Red Death “passes in close proximity to all of the guests”  Unity of Effect
Possible interpretations Seven Deadly Sins Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man Poe’s Seven Rooms
Pride: excessive belief in one's own abilities; interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God Envy: the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, goods, or situation Gluttony: desire to consume more than that which one requires Lust: a craving for the pleasures of the body Anger: manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury Greed: the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual Sloth: the avoidance of physical or spiritual work Seven Deadly Sins, Again
Infant Scholar Lover Soldier Justice Middle age Old Age and Death: That ends this strange eventful history…Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. Seven Ages of Man
Room 1: decorated in blue Room 2: decorated in purple Room 3: decorated in green Room 4: decorated in orange Room 5: decorated in white Room 6: decorated in violet Room 7: decorated in black Poe’s Seven Rooms Reprise
I’ll take what’s behind door number 7!
The apartment is “shrouded in black velvet,” the windows are “scarlet—a deep blood-color.”  “The effect of the firelight upon the blood tinted panes is ghastly in the extreme, and produces so wild a look upon the countenance of those who enter it that there are few…bold enough to set foot within it.”
Poe’s purpose in these descriptions, particularly the black room, has no relation to reality. No such place as the black room would be used as a part of a ballroom. But Poe wants to achieve an effect—a total, unifiedeffect—in order to show the close proximity of the revelry of life to the inevitability of death.  UnifiedEffect Reprise
Symbolism  Black usually symbolizes death.  Moreover, in describing the black decor of the room, the narrator says that it is shrouded in velvet, shrouded being a word always referring to death.  Likewise, the window panes are “scarlet—a deep blood color.” This is an obvious reference to the “Red Death.”
Beginning The Eastern room (symbolic of the beginning of life) The Western room (symbolic of the end of life) End
You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. The rapid passing of time, represented by the black clock; every time the clock strikes the hour, the musicians quit playing It is as though each hour is “to be stricken” upon their brief and fleeting lives. Poe reminds the reader that between the striking of each hour there elapses “three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies.”
There never seems to be enough timeTo do the things you want to do
Arabesque Costumes
Phantasm Costumes
Madmen
At midnight At the end of the day As a corpse  Sprinkled with blood Red Death Appears
Poe, by his choice of words, captures man’s universal fear of death HORROR
A Christmas Carol
 Ebenezer Scrooge is:  Unfeeling  Unsympathetic  Miserly Redemption versus Death
The Powerful versus the Powerless Ebenezer Scrooge: employers versus employees Ebenezer Scrooge versus employees: symbolized by Bob Cratchit Ebenezer Scrooge versus the poor: symbolized by the two Good Samaritans Ebenezer Scrooge versus the imprisoned: symbolized by the two Good Samaritans Law (symbolized by Ebenezer Scrooge) versus Grace (symbolized by Fezziwig, Fred Scrooge, and especially, Tiny Tim) Ebenezer Scrooge versus the sick: typified by Tiny Tim Ebenezer Scrooge versus the supernatural: typified by the Spirits
“It was a strange figurelike a child: yet not so like achild as like an old man, viewed through some supernaturalmedium, which gave him the appearance of having recededfrom the view, and being diminished to a child’rs proportions.Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, waswhite as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle init, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms werevery long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its holdwere of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare.” The Ghost of Christmas Past
 Ghost of Christmas Present
Ghost of Christmas Future
Scrooge’s encounter with the Ghost of the Future (AKA Death) transforms him from a cold, ruthless, miser into a giving and caring gentleman Scrooge temporarily avoids his inevitable date with Death He is given more time to accrue Good Deeds and to get his account in order before the Day of Reckoning Changed!
It's a Wonderful Life
Cosmic Battle
I owe everything to George Bailey. Help him, dear Father. Joseph, Jesus and Mary. Help my friend Mr. Bailey. Help my son George tonight.  He never thinks about himself, God; that's why he's in trouble.  George is a good guy. Give him a break, God. I love him, dear Lord. Watch over him tonight. Please, God. Something's the matter with Daddy. Please bring Daddy back.  Spiritual DimensionsIt’s a Wonderful Life
Potter: Have you put any real pressure on those people of yours to pay those mortgages? Bailey: Times are bad, Mr. Potter. A lot of these people are out of work. Potter: Then foreclose! Bailey: I can't do that. These families have children. Potter: They're not my children. Bailey: But they're somebody's children. Potter: Are you running a business or a charity ward?  When the wicked triumph over the righteous
Angels we have heard on high
George Bailey—the unsung hero of Bedford Falls  George lives by a creed that always places human need above riches Capra effectively captures the darkness of George's mood as his mounting personal and financial troubles plunge him into an abyss of despair—George standing on a bridge, contemplating suicide. George's lovable, bumbling guardian angel, has to prove to George that his life is worth living. To defend his position, Clarence grants George one wish: to see what the world would be like if he had never been born.
Portrayals in Art and Poetry
Memento mori (Latin: remember that you must die)
Ars moriendi ("The Art of Dying")
The Three Dead You, Laborer, who in care and pain Have lived your whole life Must die, that is certain... You should be happy to die, For it frees you from great care...To which the Laborer replies; Many long for death Not I! Come wind or rain, I'd rather be back in the vineyard again. The Guyot verses
Poetry and Death We are alive, therefore we will die.
Pass by! O pass me by! Away, wild mask of death! I am still young! Oh why destroy me with your breath? Give me your hand, you lovely, tender child I am your friend and bring no harm. Have courage. See, I am not wild. Now go to sleep upon my arm.Schubert's 1817 suite Der Tod und das Mädchen.
Because I could not stop for Death–He kindly stopped for me–The Carriage held but just Ourselves–And Immortality. We slowly drove–He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility–We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess–in the Ring–We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain–We passed the Setting Sun– Or rather–He passed us–The Dews drew quivering and chill–For only Gossamer, my Gown–My Tippet–only Tulle–We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground–The Roof was scarcely visible–The Cornice–in the Ground– Since then–’tis Centuries–and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity–      Because I could not stop for Death
Invictus  Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid… I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.                     
Sunset and evening star And one clear call for meAnd may there be no mourning of the barWhen I put out to sea...   But such a side is moving seems asleepToo full for sound and foamWhen that which drew out from the boundless deepTurns again home.   For tho’ from out our stream of time and placeThe flood may bear me farI hope to see my Pilot face to face,When I have crossed the bar.
	If there’s no resurrection…then everything we’ve told you is smoke and mirrors…Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ—sheer fabrications, if there’s no resurrection.  I Corinthians 15
The truth is: Christ has been raised from the dead…
Everybody dies because of Adam’s transgression; everybody comes alive in Christ. God won't let up until the last enemy is down—and the very last enemy is death!
As the last trumpet sounds the dead will be raised from their graves, never to die again.  Then the saying will come true: “Death has lost the battle!      Where is its victory?     Where is its sting?”  Sin, guilt, and death will be vanquished and demolished. In Death’s place we will be given the gift of eternal life.

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P P T The Dilemma Of Death

  • 1. The Dilemma of Death Literature, Art and Film Connections
  • 3. Everyman Fellowship assures Everyman that he will accompany his friend wherever he is going, but when he hears of the destination, Fellowship declines. He offers women and good times, but he will not go on a journey to face God’s judgment
  • 4. Pride: excessive belief in one’s own abilities Envy: the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, goods, or situation Gluttony: desire to consume more than one requires Lust: a craving for the pleasures of the body Anger: the individual spurns love and opts for fury Greed: the desire for material wealth Sloth: the avoidance of physical work Seven Deadly Sins
  • 5. Goods Everyman turns to Goods, for whom he has committed so many of the sins that weigh heavily upon him. Goods cannot leave earth’s bounds; what man acquires on earth must be left behind.
  • 6. Fellowship abandons Everyman Relatives abandon Everyman Everyman becomes aware that he has trusted in the wrong things What will he do now? Betrayed
  • 7. Everyman asks Good Deeds for help, but Good Deeds is weak, collapsed at Everyman’s feet. Good Deeds is incapacitated by Everyman’s sins and cannot help. Good Deeds
  • 8. Knowledge takes Everyman to visit Confession, where he learns that repentance of his sins is the means to salvation. Acknowledging his sins, the burden is lifted from Everyman’s soul Knowledge
  • 9. In addition to Knowledge, Everyman now has the companionship of Discretion, Beauty, Strength, Five Senses Discretion, Beauty, Strength, Five Senses
  • 10. Everyman prepares to meet Death Beauty abandons Everyman Strength departs from Everyman Discretion leaves Everyman Five Senses abandons Everyman Knowledge departs from Everyman Only Good Deeds remains with Everyman for the final journey End of the Journey
  • 11. An Angel Attends Everyman
  • 12. An Angel greets Everyman to escort him to the Final Judgment, where only Good Deeds can speak for him. All men must make this journey
  • 13.
  • 14. “O Death, you come when I had you least in mind.”
  • 15. Sudden destruction will come upon them…they shall not escape. Devastation, pestilence, fatal, hideous, horror of blood, sharp pains, profuse bleeding, scarlet stains, victim, disease = The Red Death The signature marks of The Red Death: Redness of the blood Scarlet stains Death occurs within thirty minutes of infection
  • 16. Prince Prospero, has summoned a thousand of his “lighthearted friends” to join him in a “castellated abbey” which has strong and lofty walls and “gates of iron.” Outside the ‘secure fortress’ Red Death rampages and decimates its victims Allusion—Prince Prospero—Shakespeare: In the Tempest Prospero realizes his short comings and is transformed. However, in the “Masque of the Red Death,” Prospero is destroyed because of his hubris Happiness and Prosperity
  • 17. Perhaps one of the most vivid examples of hubris in ancient Greek literature is in Homer’s Iliad, Another example is in Oedipus Rex. Oedipus meets King Laius of Thebes. Oedipus kills King Laius who is his biological father. He then marries his mother, discovers what he has done, and gouges out his eyes because of his guilt and shame. In The Odyssey Odysseus incurs Poseidon’s wrath for blinding Polyphemus, Poseidon’s son; Odysseus is then punished for his actions Greek Theater and Hubris
  • 18. And the high fortifications of his walls he will bring down, lay low, and cast to the ground, to the dust Folly and futility People try to escape death However, Death is a foe we cannot escape
  • 19. Poe uses unity of effect, in this case a closed room and high exterior walls, to give the impression that there is no escape from impending doom Unity of effect is the emotion that the text conveys The term was coined by Edgar Allen Poe.The revelers are locked inside high walls and the gates of iron; they are further enclosed by the seven halls The Red Death “passes in close proximity to all of the guests” Unity of Effect
  • 20. Possible interpretations Seven Deadly Sins Shakespeare’s Seven Ages of Man Poe’s Seven Rooms
  • 21. Pride: excessive belief in one's own abilities; interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God Envy: the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, goods, or situation Gluttony: desire to consume more than that which one requires Lust: a craving for the pleasures of the body Anger: manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury Greed: the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual Sloth: the avoidance of physical or spiritual work Seven Deadly Sins, Again
  • 22. Infant Scholar Lover Soldier Justice Middle age Old Age and Death: That ends this strange eventful history…Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. Seven Ages of Man
  • 23. Room 1: decorated in blue Room 2: decorated in purple Room 3: decorated in green Room 4: decorated in orange Room 5: decorated in white Room 6: decorated in violet Room 7: decorated in black Poe’s Seven Rooms Reprise
  • 24. I’ll take what’s behind door number 7!
  • 25. The apartment is “shrouded in black velvet,” the windows are “scarlet—a deep blood-color.” “The effect of the firelight upon the blood tinted panes is ghastly in the extreme, and produces so wild a look upon the countenance of those who enter it that there are few…bold enough to set foot within it.”
  • 26. Poe’s purpose in these descriptions, particularly the black room, has no relation to reality. No such place as the black room would be used as a part of a ballroom. But Poe wants to achieve an effect—a total, unifiedeffect—in order to show the close proximity of the revelry of life to the inevitability of death. UnifiedEffect Reprise
  • 27. Symbolism Black usually symbolizes death. Moreover, in describing the black decor of the room, the narrator says that it is shrouded in velvet, shrouded being a word always referring to death. Likewise, the window panes are “scarlet—a deep blood color.” This is an obvious reference to the “Red Death.”
  • 28. Beginning The Eastern room (symbolic of the beginning of life) The Western room (symbolic of the end of life) End
  • 29. You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. The rapid passing of time, represented by the black clock; every time the clock strikes the hour, the musicians quit playing It is as though each hour is “to be stricken” upon their brief and fleeting lives. Poe reminds the reader that between the striking of each hour there elapses “three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies.”
  • 30. There never seems to be enough timeTo do the things you want to do
  • 34. At midnight At the end of the day As a corpse Sprinkled with blood Red Death Appears
  • 35. Poe, by his choice of words, captures man’s universal fear of death HORROR
  • 37. Ebenezer Scrooge is: Unfeeling Unsympathetic Miserly Redemption versus Death
  • 38. The Powerful versus the Powerless Ebenezer Scrooge: employers versus employees Ebenezer Scrooge versus employees: symbolized by Bob Cratchit Ebenezer Scrooge versus the poor: symbolized by the two Good Samaritans Ebenezer Scrooge versus the imprisoned: symbolized by the two Good Samaritans Law (symbolized by Ebenezer Scrooge) versus Grace (symbolized by Fezziwig, Fred Scrooge, and especially, Tiny Tim) Ebenezer Scrooge versus the sick: typified by Tiny Tim Ebenezer Scrooge versus the supernatural: typified by the Spirits
  • 39. “It was a strange figurelike a child: yet not so like achild as like an old man, viewed through some supernaturalmedium, which gave him the appearance of having recededfrom the view, and being diminished to a child’rs proportions.Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, waswhite as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle init, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms werevery long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its holdwere of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare.” The Ghost of Christmas Past
  • 40. Ghost of Christmas Present
  • 42. Scrooge’s encounter with the Ghost of the Future (AKA Death) transforms him from a cold, ruthless, miser into a giving and caring gentleman Scrooge temporarily avoids his inevitable date with Death He is given more time to accrue Good Deeds and to get his account in order before the Day of Reckoning Changed!
  • 45. I owe everything to George Bailey. Help him, dear Father. Joseph, Jesus and Mary. Help my friend Mr. Bailey. Help my son George tonight. He never thinks about himself, God; that's why he's in trouble. George is a good guy. Give him a break, God. I love him, dear Lord. Watch over him tonight. Please, God. Something's the matter with Daddy. Please bring Daddy back. Spiritual DimensionsIt’s a Wonderful Life
  • 46. Potter: Have you put any real pressure on those people of yours to pay those mortgages? Bailey: Times are bad, Mr. Potter. A lot of these people are out of work. Potter: Then foreclose! Bailey: I can't do that. These families have children. Potter: They're not my children. Bailey: But they're somebody's children. Potter: Are you running a business or a charity ward? When the wicked triumph over the righteous
  • 47. Angels we have heard on high
  • 48. George Bailey—the unsung hero of Bedford Falls George lives by a creed that always places human need above riches Capra effectively captures the darkness of George's mood as his mounting personal and financial troubles plunge him into an abyss of despair—George standing on a bridge, contemplating suicide. George's lovable, bumbling guardian angel, has to prove to George that his life is worth living. To defend his position, Clarence grants George one wish: to see what the world would be like if he had never been born.
  • 49. Portrayals in Art and Poetry
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  • 54.
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  • 59. Memento mori (Latin: remember that you must die)
  • 60. Ars moriendi ("The Art of Dying")
  • 61. The Three Dead You, Laborer, who in care and pain Have lived your whole life Must die, that is certain... You should be happy to die, For it frees you from great care...To which the Laborer replies; Many long for death Not I! Come wind or rain, I'd rather be back in the vineyard again. The Guyot verses
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  • 64. Poetry and Death We are alive, therefore we will die.
  • 65. Pass by! O pass me by! Away, wild mask of death! I am still young! Oh why destroy me with your breath? Give me your hand, you lovely, tender child I am your friend and bring no harm. Have courage. See, I am not wild. Now go to sleep upon my arm.Schubert's 1817 suite Der Tod und das Mädchen.
  • 66. Because I could not stop for Death–He kindly stopped for me–The Carriage held but just Ourselves–And Immortality. We slowly drove–He knew no haste And I had put away My labor and my leisure too, For His Civility–We passed the School, where Children strove At Recess–in the Ring–We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain–We passed the Setting Sun– Or rather–He passed us–The Dews drew quivering and chill–For only Gossamer, my Gown–My Tippet–only Tulle–We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground–The Roof was scarcely visible–The Cornice–in the Ground– Since then–’tis Centuries–and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity–     Because I could not stop for Death
  • 67. Invictus Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid… I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.                     
  • 68. Sunset and evening star And one clear call for meAnd may there be no mourning of the barWhen I put out to sea...   But such a side is moving seems asleepToo full for sound and foamWhen that which drew out from the boundless deepTurns again home.   For tho’ from out our stream of time and placeThe flood may bear me farI hope to see my Pilot face to face,When I have crossed the bar.
  • 69. If there’s no resurrection…then everything we’ve told you is smoke and mirrors…Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ—sheer fabrications, if there’s no resurrection. I Corinthians 15
  • 70. The truth is: Christ has been raised from the dead…
  • 71. Everybody dies because of Adam’s transgression; everybody comes alive in Christ. God won't let up until the last enemy is down—and the very last enemy is death!
  • 72. As the last trumpet sounds the dead will be raised from their graves, never to die again. Then the saying will come true: “Death has lost the battle!     Where is its victory?    Where is its sting?”  Sin, guilt, and death will be vanquished and demolished. In Death’s place we will be given the gift of eternal life.

Editor's Notes

  1. Born Dec. 12, 1863, Løten, Norway — died Jan. 23, 1944, Ekely: Norwegian painter and printmaker. His life and art were marked by the deaths of both parents, his brother, and his sister during his childhood, and the mental illness of another sister. He received little formal training, but the encouragement of a circle of artists in Christiania (now Oslo) and exposure to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism helped him develop a highly original style. It was principally through his work of the 1890s, a series of paintings on love and death in which he gave form to mysterious and dangerous psychic forces, that he made crucial contributions to modern art. The Scream (1893), his most famous work, is often seen as a symbol of modern humanity's spiritual anguish. His etchings, lithographs, drypoints, and woodcuts closely resemble his paintings in style and subject matter. After a nervous breakdown in 1908 – 09, therapy lent his work a more positive, extroverted tone, but his art never recovered its former intensity. His work influenced the proponents of German Expressionism.