Death In America First Paper

Philippe Aries and Death in Early America

In Philippe Aries’ Western Attitudes Towards Death, the author describes four separate, general attitudes towards death that occurred between 300 A.D. and the present. The two most relevant to the early American period that we have studied in class are the ones he terms “One’s Own Death,” in the period from c.1200 A.D. to 1700, and “Thy Death,” in the period between 1700 and 1920. Several different sources illustrate various aspects of these different stages, as well as the changes between them as the “language of death” varied over time. They offer evidence of the nature of the relationship between man and God, peoples’ reactions to death in their surroundings, and the changing overall American view towards death.
One of the most obvious ways that Aries’ theories are reflected in early American writing is in the accounts of deathbed scenes. Because the artes moriendi shows a “struggle between the forces of good and evil who are fighting for possession of the dying man,” (Aries 36) as well as a “final test” (Aries 37) of the dying man’s virtue, the “ritual solemnity of the deathbed… by the end of the Middle Ages had assumed among the educated classes a dramatic character, an emotional burden which it had previously lacked” (Aries 38). Aries then states that this change had the effect of increasing the dying person’s role in his own death (Aries 38). We can see this deathbed drama and emotion in Cotton Mather’s diary, where he describes his wife’s final moments. His wife is the central or at least final player in her own death: Mather says he himself “solemnly and sincerely gave her up to the Lord,” but also that his wife then “sign’d and seal’d my Act of Resignation.” She confirms and finalizes his commitment, then stops speaking to or touching Mather, preparing herself for death.
Mather’s description also falls in line with an even earlier point Aries makes: in his first section, “Tamed Death,” Aries uses the Chanson de Roland as an example of the “pardoning of the… companions… who surrounded the deathbed,” (Aries 9) as Oliver asks Roland “forgiveness for any harm he might have unintentionally done him” (Aries 9). Though the situation and relationship between the participants is different in Mather’s account, much the same event occurs: Mather asks his wife to “tell me faithfully, what Fault she had seen in my Conversation, that she would advise me to rectify,” and she absolves him, saying that “she knew of none.” This similar pardoning, along with the emotional weight of the deathbed scene and the importance of the dying person themselves, illustrate how Mather’s way of speaking and thinking of death confirm Aries’ general depiction of it in “One’s Own Death” and “Tamed Death.”
As he introduces the concept of “Thy Death,” Aries points out that although “death in bed was a solemn event,” as we have seen in Cotton Mather’s example, it was “also an event as banal as the seasonal holidays” (Aries 59). This is definitely true in the case of William Byrd: in his diary, he devotes most of his energy to describing his food, his visitors, and his health, and very little to the recent death of his infant son. When he does speak of this event, it is mostly in the context of his wife, who is “much afflicted” while Byrd simply says, “God’s will be done” (Byrd 187). This certainly shows how death, though significant, was to many people in early America an ordinary and relatively un-disturbing occasion.
However, Aries then goes on to explain that in the 1800s, this acceptance of death shifted into a more passionate and emotional reaction. In general, he seems to imply that this new attitude came from death now being “thought of as a break” (Aries 58). People started to view death as a sort of sweet, happy event while also reacting to the deaths of others with more obvious sorrow (Aries 59-60). This increase of emotion, and the seeming contradiction in grieving intensely for the dead while also seeing it as a beneficial journey to a happier place, is summed up well in Mortal Remains. Susan Fox, a woman living in New York during the early 1800s, describes how “‘the thought of a reunion, sweeter the bitter cup of sorrow” (Isenburg & Bernstein 182) acknowledging both the pain of separation and the joy provided by the thought of a blissful heaven. Essentially, a loved one’s passing—“thy death”—is quite painful, but the belief that they have risen to heaven to exist in eternal happiness is a comforting and joyous thought.
In “Thy Death,” Aries also spends some time dealing with the development of the physical presences of death, and observes patterns in American cemeteries and gravestones. He describes the American cemeteries of the era as pastoral and English-style, with elegant simplicity in the grave markers and inscriptions, which together “fitted in very well with the melancholy of the romantic cult of the dead” (Aries 78). In the Mortal Remains chapter “The Romantic Landscape,” the description of Washington Irving’s ideal physical representation of death is similar. He believed that “‘The grave should be…a place… of sorrow and meditation,’” echoing “melancholy” above; “for Irving,” the book continues, “the conditions for ‘an honored and peaceful grave’ were met in the pastoral setting of a country church… he found that funeral services in the English countryside elevated the mind through a ‘purity of sentiment and an unaffected elegance of thought’” (Isenburg & Bernstein 189). This was reflected in the cemeteries Irving established and influenced, and in America his “vision” continues to exist in “the ancient churchyard, the rural cemetery, and the natural beauty of [Sleepy Hollow]” (Isenberg & Bernstein 203). This vision, the language in which it is described, and its influence on the American cemetery all show similarities to Aries’ generalizations about American cemeteries during the era of “thy death”; they were places of natural simplicity that reflected both the sorrow and “melancholy” of death as well as its beauty and the peace it represented.
Of course, Philippe Aries’ Western Attitudes Towards Death contains too many diverse examples for one to be able to say that, in all cases, evidence from early America shows his four-stage model to be accurate. But when Aries speaks of the solemnity and significance of the deathbed scene, and the dying person’s preparation for entering heaven, we can see all of that in Cotton Mather’s account of his wife’s death. We can observe the early American’s familiarity with death in William Byrd’s seeming normality as his son passed away, we can trace how that acceptance of death changed into a heavy emotional balance between sorrow and joy, and we can observe that emotion in the simple elegance of American rural cemeteries. In general, what can be said is that in several significant areas, the concepts he describes in the eras of “One’s Own Death” and “Thy Death” are truly backed up by, and reflected in, the writings of early Americans, and so those concepts can offer a good general blueprint for the thoughts and attitudes that our ancestors had when it came to death and mortality.

Works Cited

Ariès, Philippe. Western attitudes toward death: from the Middle Ages to the present. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. Print.

Isenberg, Nancy, and Andrew Burstein. Mortal remains: death in early America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. Print.

Byrd II, William. Secret Diary of William Byrd II. June 1710, Diary Entry