Death, politics, and ethics in nineteenth-century Britain

Bok-ki Lee, Purdue University

Abstract

This study investigates a relationship between the nineteenth-century attitude toward death and its ethico-political implications through reading a cultural event and literary works. The nineteenth-century attitude toward death, “beautiful death” named by Philippe Aries, has two main characteristics, beautification of dead bodies and death itself, and the elimination of death in the living world. In the political area, beautification of death was sometimes appropriated to unify the individuals as part of a nation by the celebration of the deaths of national figures. As an illusionary perception of death and the dead bodies by the living, beautification of death and the dead bodies accompanies neglecting the unknowable characteristics of death and concealing the decomposition of the dead bodies. Such a tendency, in terms of ethics, reflects the desire for eliminating the alterity of the Other and extending the Sameness to the Other. Even if chapters two and three focus on death and politics, and chapters four and five on death and ethics, this study attempts to show the close relatedness of ethics and politics.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Palmer, Purdue University.

Subject Area

British and Irish literature

COinS