Significance of death as a literary tool in theatre

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Significance of death as a literary tool in theatre
Thesis Statement: Different playwrights in their works deliberately decide to employ death of a character or characters to drive a point across.
During the Shakespearian era, plays in which the main character or protagonist get to face death were termed as tragedies. Such plays often left the audience in suspense often provoking their minds to wonder how things would have played out had the main character lived on. In later plays, the importance of death as a literary tool grew immensely because of the historically significant events that were taking place. In the case of latter playwrights, death was not being used to signify the terminality of matters. The playwrights do this by showing how the different characters interact with death. It was being used at times to allude to the transition that the author was witnessing or experiencing during his day and age. I shall analyze the plays one by one illustrating the significance of death in each of the plays.
In the novel titled "Notes from the underground" death is used by the author to put a point across. The main character in this novel is an anonymous narrator who critics later came to call the "underground man". It is divided into two parts. In the first one, the underground man narrates his inner thoughts on humans and their belief that everything that happens must have a particular cause. This concept is known as determinism. From his ramblings, the audience gets the feeling that the narrator exhibits signs of insecurity because of his own circumstances. He cannot achieve happiness because of his spitefulness towards life. This however does not stop him from desiring to be happy.
The second part of the novel has a conventional story has three sub-plots in it. The most outstanding being the story of Liza, a young prostitute from whom the underground man solicits and later gets sexual favors. While they are lying together in a dark location, he decides to offer her a glimpse of her future. He does so by predicting to her that her beauty will deteriorate over time until she no longer becomes desirable.
When she thinks of it she gets an epiphany that involves her dying a miserable woman. This marks an important turning point for her because she is made aware of the ills she exposes herself to on a daily basis. This inspires her so much to the point that she decides to visit him at home. At first he tries to dismiss the whole situation by giving her a lethal dose of criticism. While he is doing this, he loses his composure and cries. It emerges that the things he was telling her were actually based on what he felt about himself and the dire situation in which his life was. It was him, the underground man, who feared dying a miserable death because of his poverty. In the first part, he mentions that people will talk about the pain they have in a bid to spread it to other people.
In this novel, the author used the concept of death to show how it can be used to expose the insecurities that humans have. People will seldom dwell on these matters and often try to escape the realities by using other non-related matters as scape-goats.( Fydor Dostoevsky, "Notes from the underground")
The same literary tool is seen in "The death if Ivan Illych" .This story is set in St. Petersburg, Russia and the main character is Ivan Illych, a successful judge in the city. He is held in high regard in the corridors of justice. He was also a family man with a wife and children. Those close to him describe his demeanor as not on any of the extremes, he is neither an eccentric nor an overly calm individual. In other words he managed to strike the perfect balance in the way he carried himself. By all standards he was a model aristocrat.
As he continues to ascend higher up the social ladder, cracks begin to emerge in his personal life. He notices that his wife, Praskovya, is nagging and often too demanding of him. By the time he is a magistrate, his priorities have been transformed and he now places more value on his legal career than on his obligations to his household.
The critical point of this story is when he develops a pain on his side after experiencing an otherwise harmless fall while he was hanging curtains at home. The pain quickly progresses from a discomfort on his side to being a life-threatening injury. It is now obvious to him as well as his household that death is inevitable for him. His wife goes against the expected by being unsympathetic to his plight. The only person who comforts him is his servant, Gerasim. Ivan is forced to stop working as he is bedridden. While he awaits his fate, Ivan goes into deep thought about his mortality. He at first is convinced that he doesn`t deserved death because he lived a righteous life. This is followed by feelings of hatred towards his family because of the neglect they show him as well as the fact that they refuse to come to terms with the fact that he is about to die. Later he questions his earlier stance about his ‘right life`. At this point he gets an important realization concerning two kinds of life. They were an artificial life and an authentic life. The former is the one he had lived and it led people to fear death as a result of their greed for the finer things in life. The authentic life was that one which his servant, Gerasim lived. It was characterized by selflessness and compassion towards others` sufferings. As he is dying, his hatred towards his family is replaced by sympathy for them because he knows they will continue to live their shallow lives while he finally got a chance to briefly experience an authentic one.( Leo Tolstoy , "The Death of Ivan Ilyich")
In this novel, the subject of mortality provoked the protagonist so much that he changed his perspective towards life. This helps the audience to see that those who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of wealth often do so while making a huge sacrifice. They give up an authentic life in favor of its pale shadow that ensnares them forever.
Third we analyze the play known as "Mother Courage and her children" .The setting of this play is in the 17th century in Europe during the period of the 30 year war that took place. The protagonist in this play is a canteen woman whose name is Mother Courage. For her, the war is an opportunity to make profits by selling foodstuffs to the soldiers who are fighting in the war. Mother Courage has three children, Eilif, Kattrin and Swiss cheese. She travels with her children in the war, fully aware of the risks she is exposing them to.
Her firstborn son Eilif is drawn ...