Exploring The Boundaries: junio 2009

Death is the end of our journey, the only thing that is inevitable. Death is always haunting our life’s waiting for the exact moment to strike and take our lives away from us. Death is feared, hated, and respected. It doesn’t have a time or a place it just gets to you in the moment less probable. For some death means salvation, for some others it means destruction. Due to its unnatural nature death is seen as something to be respected and it creates a feeling of insecurity in us. It is one of the themes that are most recurrent in our literature and arts since it is the only thing us humans can’t control. In Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities, example he represents his ideas over death’s triumph by showing how in different cities death has taken over the history of these cities making them mold to it. In "Triumph of Death" by Brueghel we can see a connection between this piece and Calvino’s book since the theme of death is expressed. Although they both show death Calvino shows death as something that is inevitable but that will not triumph over the cities, while Brueghel shows death as triumphant over anything in its way.In Calvino’s book, there is a section of cities called Cities & Death. In this section of the book Calvino describes cities that have experienced death and that have changed because of it. These cities such as Adelma, Clarice, and Eusapia, have been affected by death but they are still up, they are still moving and life has brought them up again.
In Clarice for example plagues have hit the city, and it has decayed several times “Several times it decayed, then burgeoned again, always keeping the first Clarice as an unparalleled model of every splendor…” (Calvino 106). In this city, although death has tried to burry it underground, survivors have always brought it back up from the ashes. One factor that makes death triumph is that it destroy anything on its path leaving no trace of life. Death has not triumphed in Clarice because what really matters is what the first civilians from Clarice left as their legacies. The real Clarice is always reconstructed, this symbolizes how death has tried to destroy this city but has never triumphed. In Brueghel’s painting we see how death has taken over this place leaving nothing more than lifeless corpses and destruction. Brueghel’s painting shows the desperation of the humans on this piece. Fire, skeletons and suicide show how human’s hope of life is lost. Everything they had is destroyed, the skeletons, representing death, are killing the ones left and to end their suffering some others are jumping over cliffs to die.
In another city, Eusapia, for example people have made death less feared. They have created an underground copy of this city to burry their death so that it seems as if they had never left the city. “And to make the leap from life to death less abrupt, the inhabitants have constructed an identical copy of their city, underground.” (Calvino 109). Another of the factors why death triumphs is because of the fear people has to it, which sometimes makes them succumb to death and leave their destiny in its hands. In this city, inhabitants have decreased the fear factor in death by creating this underground city so that it doesn’t seem so bad. The leap from life to death is not so hard. In Brueghel’s piece, people show their fear and desperation towards death when we see the expression in their faces, when we see them jumping over cliffs to end their suffering.
In Adelma, another city in Calvino’s book, we see how the cycle of life, although disturbed by death is not stopping. Although many people are dead or are dying, there are new generations being born who will, in the future take the places of the old and will again lead the city. “ I thought: “Perhaps Adelma is the city were you arrive dying and were each finds again the people he has known. This means I, too, am dead.” (Calvino 95) in this city we see how although people seem dead and old, they are still living. Marco Polo says he is dead too, but this can also mean all the other people are alive like him. This shows another factor of the triumph of death, which is inevitable. In this city people seem dead but they are not therefore, death has lost is inevitability since they will not change really when they die. In Brueghel’s piece death is inevitable since there is no sign of salvation, either they die killed by the skeletons, or by the armies, or they suicide, or they are already dead.
Death may or not be triumphant it depends on how you depict it… Factors such as Fear towards it, its inevitability, and its erasing of any trace of life makes death triumphant. In Calvino’s book, cities such as Adelma, Clarice, and Eusapia, have come closer to making death less triumphant by creating underground copies of the city, or by bringing it up again, or finally by loosing their life like characteristics without dying. We may say that death will never be triumphant if the legacy us humans leaves teach future generations, to live life to the fullest and to never loose their hope.