Do we write because we fear death?
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“My life, I feel, will not be lived until there are books and stories which relive it perpetually in time.” — Sylvia Plath
Do you write to re-live your life perpetually in time, like Sylvia Plath wanted to do?
Or do you write to live as many lives as you possibly can while you still have breath in your lungs? To try and beat your own mortal clock, in a way?
Or do you write to plant your flag in this world, simply to say, “I was here, once.”?
“What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination.” — Sylvia Plath
Perhaps what is more likely is that we write to keep our imaginations alive and intact while we’re still here on Earth. We write to feel as alive and as complete as possible, before we depart. Yet when we depart, we still want what we write to have a life of its own, to outlive us in a way. No?
“I cannot live for life itself: but for the words which stay the flux.” — Sylvia Plath
But maybe it’s more accurate to believe, rather more (ironically) uplifting, to say that we write to spite death, to ensure that death cannot really come for us when we are in the words we intend to leave behind? That we will greet death when we are good and ready, if and when we want to be ready, thank you very much.
“Writing breaks open the vaults of the dead and the skies behind which the prophesying angels hide.” — Sylvia Plath
There is also the possibility that we write to engage with death, to confront death, to ‘open the vaults of the dead and the skies behind which the prophesying angels hide’, to assuage any fears we would have otherwise. We conjure the worst of what death could offer in our writers’ imaginations so we aren’t afraid when it comes for us, because we know it will.
Since the dawn of time humans have told stories about the afterlife, what happens when and after we die, to confront and attempt to accept death, even admonish it, though it is not something we will ever be capable of understanding fully… until it is far too late.
But maybe that’s because we’re denying our greatest fear: that after we die, there is nothing to imagine or write about at all. And for self-centered, resourceful, creative creatures like us, what could be worse than that, than nothingness? What could be worse than a colorless void of who knows what? What could be worse than something our human words don’t have the capacity to describe?
If you tallied every story ever written, I would wager most are about death or confront death in some way. We fear loved ones dying before we do, serial killers ending us arbitrarily when we still have so much to live for, apocalyptic and dystopic ends that could and should be prevented, terrorists killing hordes of us for reasons we will understand but refuse to believe in, etc. Oh, and don’t forget all the stories we tell about war, its carnage and supposed glory, and the heavy death tolls they bring.
In short, we’ve always been obsessed with writing about death, and writing’s relationship to death and dying, which will eternally remain a wonder, considering death is the only certainty we (ironically) ever get in life. Unless… Do we prefer to write about death and its effect on us and our writing, or use our writing to confront and engage with it, precisely because it is the one thing we know is certain?
Still, why would we want to do the one thing — write — that will consistently remind us of death’s looming presence?
Is it due to the ‘death drive’ Freud talked about? Do we keep conjuring all the destruction death can bring and kill all our darlings in our writing so that we can return to, or re-live and reinvent our lives in some way? So our lives are calmer and clearer, yet inorganic enough to survive us somehow, via an angelic yet (mostly) intangible state?
I’ll probably continue my thoughts and ramblings on this topic some other day, as there’s a lot to consider and unpack here, but for now I will say that yes, in many ways, I do believe we write to confront and engage with, maybe even taunt (when we’re feeling bold or cheeky), our fears of death and dying, even if it isn’t our death alone that we fear, and even if death comes to us in the form of a conjured angel or demon...
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© This work is not available for artificial intelligence (AI) training. All Rights Reserved by K.E. Creighton; Creighton’s Compositions LLC.
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Today’s Writing Prompt
Writing Prompt: Beyond the Grave
Write a dialogue happening between someone living (this person can be you) and someone who is no longer with us. Or write a dialogue between two deceased people, real or imagined.
Writing Tip
Before you begin writing consider what would prompt these individuals (or at least one of the individuals) to go to such great lengths to talk beyond the grave, which is likely difficult to achieve. Unfinished business? Love? Regret?
