Repensando o olhar a respeito da morte: as implicações da redução de um fenômeno multifacetado ao trágico

Abstract

This work has its origins in the manner death is perceived in the Western culture. The end of life is noticed as hideous, the tragic aspects are emphasized among the myriad of possible interpretations regarding the subject, eclipsing other possibilities. In fact, unlike other times, we have banned human finitude from speech, from view and even from thought. We live in the midst of a culture that aims to turn death into a foreigner, in spite of the deceases do not cease. Therefore we intend to analyze what are the consequences from the concealment and denial of our own mortality. To achieve this end, after observing how death was received in different periods of Western history, we contrasted the current perception concerning the subject with distinct looks and situations from literature, responsible for evoking the plurality of meanings to which death appears to be receptive. We utilized some literary works, emphasizing three of them, As intermitências da morte (2005), by José Saramago, Narciso e Goldmund (1930), by Hermann Hesse, and Cartas do inferno (1998), by Ramón Sampedro. In the most narratives observed, there are significant interpretative divergences about transience compared to the common sense. In short, the inexistence of death could reduce life to a nefarious habit devoid of soul or allow it to be filled with the most terrible sufferings, without any chance of relief. On the other hand, the acceptance of our own finitude may confer value and urgency to human life, being a stimulus for the individual reinvention and a propellant for experimentation and self-knowledge. Lastly, we observed how the prevalence of negative impressions in regard to death oppresses the person who wants to abandon the own life, being stuck in a meaningless existence.