With life comes death.
There can’t be one without the other. We know that eventually we are going to be ashes spread across a flowing river or rotting flesh buried in the muddy pits of earth.
Whether we consent to it or not is a completely different matter. Woody Allen, in his typical witty humour, once said, “I’m not afraid of death. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” Obviously, he is one of those people that are startled by death and ergo refuses it. But some people embrace death. They don’t fear it and they swim through life floating on with no worries as to the inevitable. Some even anticipate it.
In Emily Bronte’s poem, “Fall, leaves, fall,” she orders the leaves of youth to fall, and instructs the recently blooming flowers to die. She commands youth, in terms of summer, to leave, while she beckons winter, the end in terms of old age and death, to approach. She desires winter. She is openly pining for death. She “shall smile when wreaths of snow Blossom where the rose should grow.” The thought of snowy death consuming the life that existed in the presence of the flower enthuses her.
She has no fear.
In The Road, death is a very popular theme, seeing as the novel subsists on survival and the resoluteness to stay alive. Unlike Emily, though, the father and son don’t embrace death. They hide from it, and yet they have simply grown resigned to it. It is clearly engraved into their minds that death is a high possibility and it resides nearby.
They don’t exactly summon it.
But they accept it.
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