Learning to Die
Learning to Die: The Deathbed in the Victorian Novel
M.A. Thesis English Language and Culture
Lisan Hoogendonk
’t Lange Weidje 14
1749 JV Warmenhuizen
5618622
[email protected]
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Dr. Gene M. Moore
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Learning to Die
Learning to Die: the Deathbed in the Victorian Novel
“As you are we once were; as we are you will sometime be” (Pounds 220)
The Victorians were obsessed with death, mourning and extravagant funerals.
According to Michael Wheeler, this obsession is displayed in different forms of fictional
literature, poetry and theological writings, especially in the form of the Victorian deathbed
scene:
evidence of the Victorians’ obsessive interest in death is as widely available in the
imaginative literature of the period as it is in the theology. The deathbed scene ... was
a familiar literary convention not only in prose fiction but also in narrative poetry,
biography; and a remarkable high proportion of the lyric poetry of the period,
particularly by women writers, addressed the themes of death and dying, bereavement
and mourning. (28)
Death may feature in many literary (fictional) texts, but this does not necessarily indicate an
obsession. In the Victorian period death simply was more present in literature than in any
other period (Joseph and Tucker 112). As a result the nineteenth century is most often
associated with death and mourning. The grand funeral and other ostentatious displays of
grief are examples of this assumed obsession (Curl 7). But it is important to put these images
of the long, stately and silent funeral processions, mourning clothes and jewellery, and strict
rules and regulations concerning social conduct in the proper perspective. The evidence, as
Pat Jalland points out, is mainly based on ceremonial state occasions when the funeral
functioned as a marker of social status (196). Another example of the Victorian obsession was
Queen Victoria’s obsessive mourning over the loss of Prince Albert. The Queen’s mourning
often is assumed to be a model admired and adopted by her subjects; but, as Jalland explains,
Victoria’s excessive behaviour was more an exception than a rule: “Queen Victorian was an
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‘exemplar of chronic grief’, criticised by her own subjects for her extreme behaviour, not the
model widow nor the typical Victorian mourner” (232).
One cannot deny that death and the deathbed are themes that often return in fiction,
poetry and religion. But how accurate are these representations as descriptions of societies’
attitudes towards death as a whole? In her book Literary Remains Mary Elizabeth Hotz asks:
“[w]hat do representations of death reveal about society and its values?” (1). Where Hotz
focuses on the corpse and its place in society, the focus here will be on death and the deathbed
scene and what it meant to society, what it possibly can reveal and how it was used in fiction.
Victorian fiction often features a deathbed. But rather than blaming this on obsession,
Herbert F. Tucker and Gerard Joseph explain that the Victorians wrote about death simply
because they could not help themselves: “Victorians wrote about death because they couldn’t
help it. They didn’t know any better” (110). Tucker and Joseph identity death in a narrative
form as “speculation”; they assume that the Victorians cast what they knew about nature,
culture and life in “the form of story development” (110). The narrative shape of such objects
reassured and helped the Victorians to deal with all they did not know. Consequently, these
stories produced, according to Tucker and Joseph, two master narratives that deal with death
and dying (111). The first one deals with the act of dying itself:
its scene of choice is that favourite Victorian topos the gently lighted and lovingly
attended deathbed; its conventions include the deliberate taking of leave, the face
turned to the wall or else the gaze cast upward beyond this world, the passage through
pain into illumination, the word of gesture expressive of a life’s concentrated essence.
(111)
Scenes and descriptions as these often feature in the works of Dickens or little Eva’s death in
Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Eva is surrounded by her loved ones, she feels no pain and with her gaze
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upwards: “a glorious smile passed over her face, and she said, brokenly, — ‘O! Love, — joy,
— peace!’ gave on sigh, and passed from death unto life!” (Beecher Stowe 113). Such scenes
were highly sentimental and are unlikely to be accurate descriptions of actual deathbed
scenes. The reason the deathbed in fiction appealed to the Victorian audience was because it
often portrayed an ideal deathbed. The second master narrative:
concerns not the hour of death but the days and months afterward, as experienced by
the survivor in mourning. Mourning, unlike dying, is a lived and to that extent a
communicable experience; still, it was a notorious peculiarity of Victorian culture to
shroud its mourning in as richly mystified, even eroticized, a ritual narrative as that
which it accorded to dying. Within this narrative the mourner underwent a process that
led, by halting steps, from prostrating disintegrations of a wildly private grief, through
beneficent touches of recognition and commemoration, to the construction of a
changed yet strengthened self, healed within and also embraced anew as a wiser is
sadder member of the Victorian social body. (111)
Such highly ritualised mourning rituals served another purpose than simply act as a display of
wealth. These rituals helped the bereaved to come to terms with their loss, much like present
day rules concerning mourning and the stages of grief one has to accomplish in order to
complete the grieving process properly.
Death and the deathbed are more than just forms of master narratives or plot devices,
and they can serve many purposes. The Victorians may seem obsessed with mourning and
with death, and these subjects do appear in a great number of literary works, but they serve a
bigger purpose than simply allowing the reader to wallow in grief. The deathbed scene taught
the Victorian audience how important it was to live properly and in effect to die well. Dying
and the deathbed scene in Victorian fiction were moralising tools.
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Learning to Die
Learning to Accept: Familiarity with Death
The familiar image of the Victorian period is one primarily concerned with death and
obsessive mourning. But, familiarity with death should not be confused with an obsession. As
Trevor May explains in The Victorian Undertaker, Victorians felt relatively at ease around the
dead although they did not welcome it (3). During Victoria’s reign mortality rates began to
decline, but the numbers still remained high. As Jalland points out:
[the] world of the Evangelical Victorian family was increasingly transformed by the
demographic reality of a declining mortality rate which, in combination with other
factors, changed the frequency and the experience of death in late Victorian and
Edwardian society ... Before 1870 mortality had remained high, with a shorter life
expectancy and a particularly high death-rate for infants and children ... The death-rate
for infants scarcely changed between 1850 and 1900, and the deaths of babies still
numbered one-quarter of all deaths by the end of the century. The Victorian
preoccupation with death was understandable – a honest realism given relatively high
mortality rates. (5)
Despite changes and improvements in living standards, nutrition, public health reforms, a
better understanding and handling of infectious diseases, and improvement of medicines,
death and dying were still harsh realities of everyday life. The prospect of an impending death
remained a source of influence on one’s behaviour, despite or because of religious doubt.
Britain has a long history of vivid and sometimes macabre representations of death.
Early Medieval iconography and the fifteenth-century Dance of Death were constant
reminders of mortality and the need to live a good Christian life. Such representations, of
course, were not just restricted to one period, but were part of a long continuing tradition with
(subtle) changes over time. The graphic and at times horrifying representations of the Middle
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Learning to Die
Ages were counteracted by a firm belief in heaven and the reward of a blissful afterlife.
However, such views became less certain over time when ideas about religion changed and
people began to doubt the systems they had been taught to believe in. Especially during the
Victorian era doubt became pervasive, and many parents struggled with the idea that they
would not be reunited with their un-baptised babies or other loved ones who did not believe in
heaven. Nevertheless, heaven and hell remained important aspects of dying and the afterlife.
Death was a central part of everyday life, as Thomas E. Jordan states: “there was
enough familiarity with death to make it a pessimistic theme of daily life” (89). Death was
present in everyday language as well, in a lighter tone, to emphasize negativity (Strange 29).
Especially in working class families, death was everywhere in a close proximity. The poor
remained, of necessity, in close contact with the corps, while the middle classes began to
distance themselves from physical contact with the corpse by employing nurses to wash and
dress those who had passed away (Strange 30). The middle classes quite possibly felt shocked
at how openly and easily death was discussed in working class households and how young
children were familiarised with the dead. But, despite this, the middle classes also seized
different opportunities to introduce their children to death at an early age, introducing them to
the idea that death was “the start of endless sorrow for wicked unbelievers, but the ‘door to
endless joys and perfection of glory’ for those who loved God” (Jalland 29).
In order to prepare children for death, mortality and the necessity of a pious Christian
life, death featured in many school texts and children’s fictions. Such texts could teach
children “to cope with the likelihood of death among their own siblings” (Valone 223), to
prepare them for their own death, and most importantly to portray the afterlife as a happier
place before God. The impact of the deaths of (young) children in (children’s) fiction or
school texts was considerable, because such bereavements were not uncommon: “[the deaths]
had a considerable impact on a public who often had to endure such bereavements in their
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Learning to Die
own lives either as parents or siblings” (Mitchel 146). Children’s literature, much as the other
literature of the period, functioned as a warning that children must “reform and obey, lest they
be taken for final judgment” (Valone 222).
The Victorian Deathbed
The many images available suggest that the domestic Victorian deathbed was traditionally a
crowded, busy and social event. A scene like the one depicted in the lithograph The Last
Moments of HRH The Prince Consort speaks to the imagination but is not necessarily a true
representation of the deathbed.
During the Middle Ages, and for many centuries to come, the deathbed was a highly
ritualized and public affair. The deathbed was the place where the dying would receive the
last rites consisting of the confession and granting of absolution followed by the anointing:
“the sacrament of extreme unction” (Horrox 96). When all the necessary rites were completed
the dying person would receive the wafer the priest had brought with him, but this was “only
to be administered if the patient was aware of what was happening ... not mad or drunk, and
was able to swallow the wafer without risk of vomiting it back” (Horrox 96). This
qualification remained important during the Victorian deathbed as well; the dying person
needed to be conscious and lucid during the final moments. Family and friends were present
and took turns in watching over the dying for signs that the end was at hand. The arrival of the
priest had alerted the neighbours and acquaintances, because his “passing through the street
with the Host [was] marked by the ringing of a hand-bell” (Horrox 96). In a relatively short
period of time a great number of people were informed that someone in their (small)
community was dying. When all was done well, one had achieved a good death but the risk
(and fear) of a bad death was always present. A bad death was considered to be one where the
individual was “in no state of mind to be thinking of salvation” (Horrox 98). This could mean
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Learning to Die
sudden and unexpected deaths, or deaths when the dying was unconscious, delirious or mad.
The circumstances of these deaths are often described as grotesque and undignified. The
worst of all deaths, from the Middle Ages to the Victorian period, was suicide. Suicide was
considered to be the most “profound of sins – the ultimate rejection of divine grace ... unless
the verdict could be softened by an assumption of madness the suicide was refused burial in
consecrated ground” (Horrox 98). This custom which was kept into practice until 1823.
Despite the attitudes towards suicide, the harsh penalties and the social stigma, it is surprising
to note that suicide was not at all uncommon in Medieval Britain, nor was it in Victorian
Britain. The attitudes towards suicide remained largely the same throughout history, with
maybe the exception of the short period during the Romantic period when it seems to have
been romanticized.
Medieval customs and rules regarding the deathbed were written down in the Ars
Moriendi: the craft of dying. Primarily these texts dealt with the practicalities before the priest
would arrive to attend to the dying with the last sacraments. These texts were not only for the
benefit for the dying, but also for those who would organize the deathbed and the funeral.
Most texts were composed of three “distinct elements” (Morgan 128): the first element dealt
with the doctrines which formed the relationship between death and salvation. The second
element dealt with the preparedness of the dying person’s soul, and the third with practical
measures that needed to be taken for managing the deathbed properly (Morgan 128). The Ars
Moriendi showed mainly an idealization of the deathbed, not how people actually died. A
good death was something widely admired, but not something everybody naturally could
achieve. During the Victorian era many of these rules and desires remained popular with
regard to the deathbed and the wish to achieve a good death. But unlike the Medieval period,
the deathbed became a more private affair.
The Good Death
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The traditional model of the good Evangelical death still was widely admired during the
Victorian era, as much as the bad deaths were feared. Many features of the Victorian deathbed
can be traced back to the early modern period, and there was a move back to the traditional
Roman Catholic model from the Middle Ages which had laid the foundations for the
Victorian ideal (Rowell 153). The Medieval Ars Moriendi texts regained popularity during the
nineteenth century as a source how to die properly. Dying was seen as a test of (Christian)
virtue, and with the disappearance of Purgatory the moment of passing assumed even greater
importance.
Traditionally the good death was slow and allowed for the dying person to make peace
with God and face death with obedience and remorse (Strange 48). Ideally a good death
should take place at home, where the person could make his or her explicit farewells to each
individual family member, and allowed for the completion of both worldly and spiritual
affairs. The person should be conscious and lucid until the end, and be “resigned to God’s
will, able to beg for forgiveness for past sins and to prove his or her worthiness for salvation”
(Jalland 26). Pain and suffering had to be borne with grace and could even be welcomed as
the final test of Christian virtue, to prove worthiness for heaven and salvation, and the
willingness to pay for any sin committed in the past (Jalland 28). Achieving a good death was
usually very difficult only a few could actually achieve it: “even the most pious men and
women usually attained, at best, only a modest approximation to the ideal” (Jalland 39).
Jalland even goes as far as to suggest that it was almost impossible for the poor and for
unbelievers because of their lack of wealth and resources and different denominations (233).
Most people realised how difficult it was to attain this ideal, and people turned to literature for
signs of salvation.
Deathbed scenes became romanticised and “represented the Christian ideal rather than
the historical reality” (Jalland 233). As in Little Nell’s famous death, authors satisfied their
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readers by “manufacturing proof of the salvation of departing heroes and heroines, depicting
rapture on their faces as they caught their first glimpse of the wonders of Heaven” (Jalland
36-37). Disease also became romanticised during the nineteenth century, especially in the
middle and upper classes of society. The Brontë sisters knew firsthand the horrible reality of
dying from consumption, yet nevertheless they romanticised the disease in their novels. One
possible explanation, proposed by Jalland, is the belief that tuberculosis and other (infectious)
diseases were to be seen as a trial of Christian fortitude. A man or woman who had lived an
upright Christian life and had achieved spiritual preparedness could “triumph over death from
certain unpleasant diseases. The committed Christian could purify his or her soul through
suffering, provided that the disease allowed time and a clear mind” (41).
No matter how horrible the disease or how well-prepared the dying person,
consciousness until the final moments remained one of the key elements for a good death.
Some diseases could make it difficult for the dying to achieve this, among them infectious
diseases described as fever, mental illness, and “particularly painful forms of cancer” (Jalland
41). The upper and middle classes regarded suffering from disease as acts of “divine
providence” which should be accepted without submission (Jalland 51). For the poorer classes
the acceptance of disease and suffering was more difficult because they often lacked the
means to nurse the sick and alleviate their pain. The early and mid-Victorians believed that
suffering from disease could act as a purifying experience. The ordeal caused by suffering
could be a punishment for sins and a means to test the Christian in his or her faith. In such
cases a good death could display the power of “true Christianity” (Jalland 52), because it
assured the ultimate victory over death.
Slowly a change occurred and the traditional view declined when fear and anxiety
about physical suffering at the moment of dying began to take hold. Before the emphasis lay
on the spiritual struggle of the deceased rather than any physical suffering, but towards the
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end of the nineteenth century there was an increased anxiety before the pain of death. The
state of the soul at the moment of passing became less important, because disease could alter a
person’s behaviour extensively, and people focused more on the possibilities to alleviate any
pain. Gradually a change took place in the ideas of good and bad deaths and are much like
present day attitudes towards the deathbed.
The Bad Death
Bad deaths were sudden deaths, because they left no time for any necessary spiritual
preparation. A slow, painful and agonising death may seem horrible, but according to
traditional belief it did give the sinner the opportunity to prove worthy of heaven and willing
to atone for former sins. The early and mid-Victorians primarily were concerned with the bad
death in a spiritual sense, and the conviction that unpreparedness at the moment of passing
would result in “eternal punishment of hell-fire” (Jalland 59). A sudden death would deprive
the person of the potential consolations of the Christian deathbed (Jalland 67). Moreover, at
times a bad deathbed was seen as an angry punishment from God for any committed sin:
“very often by the anger of God and the divine judgment, a cause of sudden and untimely
death” (Jalland 67). Not only were the sudden, bad deaths seen as punishment, they were also
believed to be more violent, especially when they involved accidents. Due to the industrial
revolution the risks of horrible accidents for the working class were much higher than ever
before, and the results far more horrifying because of the mutilated bodies.
A bad death, if it was not sudden, was one filled with suffering and excruciating pain.
The traditional view was linked to the Christian fear of judgment at the moment of passing,
where (even small) sins committed during one’s life could influence the afterlife forever. The
risk of eternal punishment only became greater when after the reformation the protestants
distanced themselves from the catholic concept of Purgatory (Jalland 59). But, the poorer
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classes could in fact welcome a sudden death, because it would save them from a long period
of agony. The poor had less means to care properly for the terminally ill, and often sickness
meant disruption in the domestic arrangements and “represented a strain on household
budgets” (Strange 49). The sick could no longer earn wages and provide for their families;
carers were tied at home as well and “medical costs necessitated extraordinary expenditure”
(Strange 49). Slow deaths of course gave the bereaved the opportunity to reconcile differences
and arguments and the opportunity to say goodbye, but given the suffering of the dying and
his or her family as a whole, a sudden death was much preferred. Later in the period this view
came to be shared with the middle and upper classes as well. Towards the end of the century a
similar shift took place in attitudes towards the bad death: from spiritual unpreparedness to
physical suffering. A good death became one that was calm and free from any pain.
Suicide was seen as the worst of all deaths. Conventionally suicide was regarded as
murder, a felony in criminal law, and – most importantly – a personal crime against God.
Suicide was the complete opposite of the good Christian death (Jalland 70). Those who had
committed suicide were denied a Christian burial, and “were interred in a pit at a crossroads,
with a wooden stake hammered through them” (Jalland 73). This custom mentioned is by
Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights: “[Hindley’s] body should be buried at the cross-roads,
without ceremony of any kind” (163). This custom was officially abolished in 1823, but such
attitudes were so ingrained in society that the social stigma remained.
The Deathbed in the Novel
She did not hear.
“O, Eva, tell us what you see! What is it?” said her father.
A bright, a glorious smile passed over her face, and she said, brokenly, —“O!
Love, — joy, — peace!” gave one sigh and passed from death unto life!
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“Farewell, beloved child! The bright, eternal doors have closed after thee; we
shall see thy sweet face no more. O, woe for them who watched thy entrance
into heaven, when they shall wake and find only the cold grey sky of daily life
and thou gone forever.” (Beecher Stowe 113)
The Victorians took morality seriously “most patterns and stylizations were moral ... fidelity
to moral ideas was also important” (Reed 4). Many of these morals had a religious undertone,
as Louis James points out: religious morals “underpin the Victorian novel, implicated in its
concern with moral choice ... life and death” (50). Literature was a perfect tool for spreading
morality, and Victorians were accustomed to “consider earthly existence as probation for
eternity [and] did not find affirmation of the redemptive effects of suffering unusual in their
literature” (Reed 8).
Deathbed scenes featured often Victorian fiction, but they did not appear only in
fiction. Many ‘true’ accounts of the deathbed scene were written down during the Victorian
era:
private family correspondence, diaries, and deathbed memorials were often heavily
influenced by the Evangelical movement, but they were not usually deliberately edited
and stage-managed; they were mostly written close to the time of death and under the
stress of intense emotion. (Jalland 25)
Usually, these accounts were written for the immediate family and private use only as a part
of the grieving process and to account to God for their lives and deaths (Jalland 26). However
many of these descriptions show similarities with the deathbed scenes as presented in fiction.
Two important elements of these moral designs were illness and the deathbed. The
Victorian period despite all the doubt was still a very religious period, which explains the
anxiousness about passing, judgment and the afterlife. There was a great deal of anxiety about
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passing properly, because the stakes were so very high when a good death was not achieved.
Victorian fiction prepared its readers to be ready when this moment came by presenting the
deathbed scene in numerous novels. These scenes in Victorian literature, according to Reed,
fulfilled important practical and moral features of life (157). Much as the idealised real
deathbed accounts, the scenes portrayed in fiction played a central part in the mourning
tradition because they helped people to deal with their grief.
In Victorian novels the deathbed scene could serve many purposes from a moment of
catharsis to the punishment of villains. The scene could function as a means to simply further
the plot, as a moral pause, as a test of character, as a sudden turning point in plot or action, or
as a domestic scene to portray family values such as the Cratchit family after Tiny Tim’s
death in A Christmas Carol (Reed 158-159). What these different functions show is the
centrality of death in the lives of the Victorians. One of the most often used functions of the
deathbed scene was to give the fallen sinner a final opportunity to “demonstrate rehabilitation
and repentance” (Reed 160). The deathbed was the ideal setting for the sinner to repent his (or
her) sins and still possibly deserve a place in heaven.
The long standing tradition of the deathbed scene was an extra reminder of the
importance of being well prepared for death. In fiction the good Christian deathbed was
presented in a positive way. A good deathbed was a reward and would almost certainly
guarantee a glorious afterlife, although towards the close of the century such scene became
more sentimental. As Reed explains the function of the deathbed scenes in Victorian
literature:
could be moving or bathetic; they could be technically convenient or structurally
important; but they were generally accepted and appreciated. The deathbed presented
the last preserve of truth; it was a final opportunity to repent, admonish or encourage.
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As a result, it customarily bore, for Victorians, an importance far greater than what we
place upon it. (171)
Good Deaths and ‘Good’ Bad Deaths as Reward
She was dead. Dear, gentle, patient, noble Nell was dead. Her little bird
– a poor slight thing the pressure of a finger would have crushed – was stirring nimbly
in its cage; and the strong heart of its child mistress was mute and motionless forever.
Where were the traces of her early cares, her sufferings, and fatigues?
All gone. Sorrow was dead indeed in her, but peace and perfect happiness were born;
imagined in her tranquil beauty and profound repose. (Dickens 529)
Many readers find the tragic death of Little Nell from Dickens’ The Old Curiosity Shop the
most tragic deathbed scene they have ever encountered. One of the emotional appeals of Little
Nell’s death was the familiarity: “the death rate ranged above 20% and child-mortality was
appallingly high, the [deathbed] scenes must have effected a powerful reader identification”
(Holubetz 14). For many readers her death was a familiar image and therefore all the more
emotional. Nell’s purity is reflected in her appearance on her deathbed, no other person looks
so peaceful and beautiful nor does any other character seem to deserve such a death as much
as Little Nell does. Although some critics suggest that it is because of this approach that
Dickens “wishes to consume Little Nell” and use her death simply for sentimental values
(Preston xiv). Dickens often is accused of idealising Nell’s death and by doing so “transforms
the moribund into peerless creatures and ennobles the mourners through sympathetic suffering
in grief ... little Nell being turned into an Angel” (Holubetz 30), which can lead to melodrama.
As Oscar Wilde famously said: “[o]ne must have a heart of stone to read the death of Little
Nell without laughing” (Lloyd-Hughes 27).
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Nevertheless is Nell one of the purest and sweetest characters created by Dickens.
Little Nell was a “pretty little girl” (4), “spiritual, so slight and fairy-like” (13), “sweet” (524),
birds would fly from the others but “never flew from her!” (524). Even on her deathbed Nell
is described as beautiful and angelic, maybe even more beautiful than while she was alive:
She was dead. No sleep so beautiful and calm, so free from trace of pain, so
fair to look upon. She seemed a creature fresh from the hand of God, and waiting for
the
breath
of
life;
not
one
who
had
lived
and
suffered
death.
[...] And still her former self lay there, unaltered in its change. Yes. The old
fireside had smiled upon that same sweet face; it had passed like a dream through
haunts of misery and care ... So shall we know the angels in their majesty after death.
(528-29)
The repeated use of the word “sleep” enhances the ideas of a peaceful slumber rather than the
harsh reality of death. The comparison of Nell with the angels emphasises her innocence and
pure character.
On Little Nell’s deathbed all the Evangelical ideals for a good death come together.
Nowadays her death is a classic example of a fictional Victorian good death:
they had read and talked to her in the earlier portion of the night, but as the
hours crept on, she sank to sleep. They could tell, by what she faintly uttered in her
dreams, that they were of her journeying with the old man; they were of no painful
scenes, but of those who had helped and used them kindly, for she often said “God,
bless you!” with great fervour. Waking, she never wandered in her mind but once, and
that was of beautiful music which she said was in the air. God knows. It may have
been.
Opening her eyes at last, from a very quiet sleep, she begged that they would
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kiss her once again. That done, she turned to the old man with a lovely smile upon her
face – such, they said, as they had never seen, and never could forget – and clung with
her arms about his neck. They did not know she was dead at first. (530)
Not once does Nell complain about her situation, not while travelling or on her deathbed. She
undergoes her fate with grace and calm, and has fulfilled with ease the requirements needed
for a good death. Little Nell’s deathbed is long enough to give her the opportunity to say her
goodbyes, and in her dreams she even gives her blessings to those who were not around. Until
the very last moment she has a clear mind. Only once does her mind wanders when she hears
beautiful music, which her onlookers do not doubt, as if she is already welcomed into heaven
by the angels. At the moment of passing Nell is surrounded by friends and dies in the arms of
her loving grandfather, when she passes she goes so peacefully it is not strange that her
friends or her grandfather do not realise she is gone.
In Victorian fiction Nell’s death is one of the most peaceful and saddest events, and
her death is all the more tragic and pure because she is completely free of sins and flaws
unlike Catherin Linton or Abel Magwitch. There simply cannot be anything bad about her
death, because that would have been an abomination of such a beautiful character. The only
sin Nell possibly commits is leaving her grandfather and friends behind, but even they can
rejoice in the fact that she is now an angel and will await them in heaven.
Little Nell is not the only one of Dickens’s beloved characters who dies a good
Evangelical death. In A Christmas Carol Tiny Tim, the sweet but sickly child, is the only
character who, despite his family’s poverty and his young age, achieved a good death. An
accomplishment which is not shared by Marley, Scrooge and the many other rich people in
(this fictional) society who all seem to be heading for a dreadful afterlife. Dickens appeals to
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the emotions of his readers but also plays on their fears of the bad death and its possible
consequences for their souls.
Marley, who may have been an outstanding character during his life, is forgotten soon
after his death by those left behind until he returns seven years later to warn Scrooge, and in
effect to warn the Victorian reader. When Scrooge asks him why all these spirits must walk
the earth, Marley replies:
“It is required of every man ... that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his
fellow-men and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is
condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world ... I wear
the chain I forged in life,” replied the Ghost. “I made it link by link, and yard by yard;
I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it ... would you
know,” pursued the Ghost, “the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?
It was as heavy and as long as this even Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it
since. It is a ponderous chain!” (25)
If a man had not been properly engaged with his fellow men during his life time, he will be
punished after death by walking the earth for all eternity. Marley’s reply paints a frightful
prospect for many Victorians who are occupied by making a large fortune; to them being
confined to one’s workplace does not seem to be such big a sin. Only after their deaths do the
spirits who are forced to walk the earth realize the mistakes they have made during their
lifetimes. The mistakes Scrooge makes are common mistakes made by many, but once they
want to repent and help those who truly need it they no longer can. The remorse for their
actions is too late:
[Scrooge] looked out. The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither
in restless haste, and moaning as they went ... Many had been personally known to
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Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white
waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at
being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a
door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for
good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever. (29-30)
Possibly the ghosts never imagined that their self-confined lives could lead to such an
afterlife, and this picture painted by Dickens must have been feared by many readers. People
would, under the influence of Christian doctrine, repent for their sins on their deathbed, but it
is likely that many would not have considered an existence preoccupied with work (and
making money) a sin. The stakes were extremely high, because the afterlife as described by
Marley does not seem to be a peaceful place: “[n]o rest, no peace, Incessant torture of
remorse” (26).
The image of Scrooge’s impending death and funeral was feared by many Victorians.
If Scrooge continued along this path, there would be no peace after the moment of passing;
the deceased would quickly be forgotten, robbed of his belongings before his body turned
cold. The thought that he might be leading a sinful life never crossed his mind, nor the idea
that his lifestyle could affect his immortal soul, sentiments shared surely by many in the
Victorian audience. The fear of a bad death, the fear of being tossed un-lovingly into an
anonymous grave, the fear that nobody would miss them: “‘Spirit!’ said Scrooge, shuddering
from head to foot, ‘I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends
that way, now!’” (105). The important question raised by Charles Dickens was what would
happen to a person who believed he or she had achieved a good Christian death, or came as
close as possible to this ideal, and this turns out to be a false assumption. Only this discovery
would be made too late, but not for Scrooge who after he received these frightful warnings
has the opportunity to change.
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The death of Tiny Tim, as Little Nell’s, may be highly idealized and unrealistic, but
his death does show the purity of children and the need to believe in God and live a proper
Christian live in order to achieve a good Evangelical death. In A Christmas Carol he is the
only one who is able to attain a good death, despite his circumstances. Tim is a good and
loving creature with a loving family who will honour and remember him after his death,
simply because he was such an extraordinary good person. For Dickens this was an ideal to
which more people should aspire, rather than obtaining money and mimicking the grand
funerals of the upper class:
[Bob said] “But however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall
none of us forget poor Tiny Tim – shall we – or this first parting that there was among
us?”
“Never, father!” cried they all.
“And I know,” said Bob, “I know, my dears that when we recollect how patient
and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily
among ourselves, and forget Tiny Tim in doing it.”
“No, never, father!” they all cried again. “I am very happy!” said little Bob, “I
am very happy!” Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young
Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy
childish essence was from God! ( 112).
In Tess of the D’Urbervilles Tess should not die a good death according to Victorian
conventions. But Tess’s death is a problematic case; is she an essentially pure and good
woman who simply lives and dies under bad circumstances because of her tragic fate, or is
she a bad woman because of all that has happened to her no matter how pure her heart is?
Thomas Hardy himself called Tess “a pure woman” (1), and in his novel he “directly
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confronted late Victorian attitudes of the ‘fallen woman’, asserting that Tess, though not a
virgin, was ‘a pure woman’” (James 122). But, as James points out, it is Tess’s kind-hearted
nature that becomes a liability: “driving her to fatal self-blame and a futile anxiety to do right.
She drifts half awake between the worlds of instinctive impulse and self-conscious,
judgmental morality” (183). Tess both blames herself for her bad fortune and attributes this to
an inescapable fate. Tess grew up with the fatalistic belief that everything that happens to her
must be so: “[a]s Tess’s own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying among
each other in their fatalistic way: ‘It was to be.’ There lay the pity of it” (74). Not only does
she attribute her bad fortune to fate, because of her religious upbringing she in convinced that
she must have done something to deserve this. But all the tragic events – with the exception of
Alec D’Urberville’s murder – happen when Tess is either sleeping or in a dreamlike state. At
the decisive moment of tragedy when Alec rapes Tess, she seems to be asleep:
the obscurity was now so great that he could see absolutely nothing but a pale
nebulousness at his feet, which represented the white muslin figure he had left upon
the dead leaves. Everything else was blackness alike. D’Urberville stooped; and heard
a gentle regular breathing. He knelt and bent lower, till her breath warmed his face,
and in a moment his check was in contact with hers. She was sleeping soundly ... But
where was Tess’s guardian angel? (73-74)
In a completely black surroundings Tess is the only white figure, a colour traditionally used to
symbolise purity. Despite her tragic fate it is hard to imagine Tess as an impure, godless
woman who would deserve punishments in the afterlife after her hardships in life.
Both Tess and Alec, according to convention, should die a bad (unprepared) death as a
retribution for their actions. In Alec’s case it is quite clear that he has been murdered and thus
died unprepared after a sinful life:
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[Mrs Brooks] got upon the table, and touched the spot in the ceiling with her fingers. It
was damp, and she fancied that it was a blood stain ... He opened the doors, entered a
step or two, and came back almost instantly with a rigid face. ‘My good God, the
gentleman in bed is dead! I think he has been hurt with a knife – a lot of blood has run
down upon the floor!’ (382-283).
One can easily imagine the punishment for Alec in his afterlife, especially since the
circumstances of his death are so gruesome. Unlike Tess, D’Urberville deliberately pursued
his bad deeds while Tess did little to deserve her fate except for being a beautiful woman.
Murdering Alec is the only action Tess deliberately and consciously takes; stabbing
D’Urberville is the one action that will seal her tragic fate by leading to her own death. But as
much as this action serves as a punishment for Alec, it sets Tess free from her past: “her
stabbing of Alec, frees her from her past, but also locks her into the nemesis of her present”
(James 183). She rejoices in the fact that she finally has the courage to set herself free: “‘Do
you know what I have been running after you for? To tell you that I have killed him!’ A
pitiful white smile lit her face as she spoke” (384). Finally Tess stood up for herself and her
love for Angel, and never before were things so clear for her:
“What, bodily? Is he dead?” “Yes. He heard me crying about you, and he bitterly
taunted me; and called you by a foul name; and then I did it. My heart could not bear
it. He had nagged me about you before. And then I dressed myself and came away to
find you.” (384)
Tess cannot be considered a sinful, fallen woman, even though her choice seals her own fate
as a murderess.
Tess’s fate can be compared to that of her baby. Tess has done as much harm to others
in her life as Sorrow has done to deserve so much hardship. Sorrow never chose not to be
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baptised, but could not avert her fate either. Thomas Hardy’s description of the baby’s offence
against society seems similar to those of Tess:
the baby’s offence against society in coming into the world was forgotten by the girlmother; her soul’s desire was to continue that offence by preserving the life of the
child. However, it soon grew clear that the hour of emancipation for that little prisoner
of the flesh was to arrive earlier than her worst misgivings conjectured. And when she
had discovered this she was plunged into misery which transcended that of the child’s
simple loss. Her baby had not been baptized. (92)
Both mother and child are judged by society for actions in which they had no say. An unbaptised baby can never blamed for this, but is punished and condemned. How can these pure
creatures be denied entrance to heaven after death? In their short lives they have neither
opportunity nor ability to commit any sin. And is Tess really punished after death?
Tess’s actual death must be a horrible scene, one fit for a bad death, yet the scene is
described in such a serene and quiet way it is difficult to see death as a punishment for Tess:
upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. [Angel’s and Liza-Lou’s] eyes
were riveted on it. A few minutes after the hour had struck something moved slowly
up the staff, and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag.
‘Justice’ was done, and the President of the Immortals (in Æschylean phrase)
had ended his sport with Tess. And the D’Urbervilles knights slept in their tomb
unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in
prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to
wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went
on. (397-98)
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The motionlessness of the affair seems to suggest dignity, even the surrounding appears quiet.
Her death seems a gentle and calm affair, not dramatic, chaotic, passionate or full of pain as
one might expect it to be. Since Hardy puts the reader even at a further distance than the two
speechless spectators Angel Clare and Liza-Lou, it will never become clear how Tess’s death
actually passed. This distance suggest a calm and peaceful event, because none of the horrible
details are described one would see when looking at this up close. Even though Tess’s death is
supposed to be a bad death it can be imagined gentle and silent, emphasised by the gentle
breeze and the slow hauling of the flag. One can easily imagine Tess in a happier place,
reunited with her Sorrow.
“Hold your noise!” cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the
graves at the side of the church porch. “keep still, you little devil, or I’ll cut your
throat!”
A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no
hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied around his head. A man who had
been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints,
and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped and shivered, and glared and
growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized [Pip] by the chin. (Dickens
3-4)
Another famous Victorian fictional character who, like Tess, is unlikely to deserve a good
death is Magwitch the convict in Dickens’s Great Expectations. Tess may have made
mistakes but how different she is from the convict both in appearance and behaviour. From
the moment Magwitch bursts onto the scene he makes a fearful impression with his ragged
appearance and manners. Not only his appearance is frightening, Magwitch threatens to eat
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young Pip: “‘[d]arn me if I couldn’t eat ‘em,’ said the man, with a threatening shake of his
head” (4). He not only threatens to eat little Pip, he bullies the boy into helping him escape:
“You bring me, tomorrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You bring the lot
to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you never dare say a word or
dare make a sign concerning you having seen such a person as me, or any person
sumever, and you shall be let live. You fail, or you go from my words in any
partickler, no matter how small it is, and your heart and you liver shall be tore out,
roasted and ate. Now, I am not alone, as you may think I am. There’s a young man hid
with me, in comparison with which young man I am an Angel ... A boy may lock his
door ... may think himself comfortable and safe, but that young man will softly creep
and creep his way to him and tear him open. I am a-keeping that young man from
harming you at present moment, with great difficulty.” (6)
Such an encounter is a horrifying experience for a young child, and it understandably
influences Pip’s perceptions of Magwitch a great deal. Years later when the two meet again
Pip, not surprisingly, still is afraid of the convict. The convict appears a cruel man; a brute
and a criminal who has escaped from the hulks.
After this first encounter Magwitch is difficult to reconcile with the image of a noble
lowlife, but despite being a criminal he quickly shows that he is one of the few people in the
novel with a truly good character. Magwitch never forgot what Pip has done for him: “[h]e
grasped [Pip’s hands] heartily, raised them to his lips, kissed them, and still held them. ‘You
acted noble, my boy,’ said he. ‘Noble Pip! And I have never forgot it!’” (270). Magwitch
feels connected to Pip, because their lives knew to some extent a similar start; orphaned at a
young age and with no particularly happy prospect of life. Pip, however, does not share this
sentiment, he still sees the convict as the cruel man he encountered in the churchyard: “[t]he
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abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the repugnance with which I
shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if he had been some terrible beast” (273). For
Pip the man is just as fearful as he was in his youth, maybe even more frightening because of
the convict’s sincerity: “he was all the more horrible to me that he was so much in earnest”
(274). But Magwitch regrets his actions and tries to make amends by taking Pip and turning
him into a gentleman:
“Yes, Pip, dear boy, I’ve made a gentleman on you! It’s me wot has done it! I swore
that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea should go to you. I swore
afterwards, sure as ever I spec’lated and got rich, you should get rich. I lived rough,
that you should live smooth; I worked hard, that you should be above work ... I tell it,
fur you to know as that were hunted dunghill dog wot kep life in, got his head so high
that he could make you a gentleman – and Pip, you’re him!” (273)
Magwitch confesses that he is the anonymous benefactor who gave Pip the opportunity to
become a gentleman. When Magwitch got his freedom and some money after his master
passed away he remained loyal to Pip, and all that he ever got was for Pip’s benefit: “[i]n
every single thing I went for, I went for you” (274). The convict repents for his sins by doing
good for another person. The image of this man who made his fortune for Pip is hard to
reconcile with the image of the cruel convict from Pip’s youth.
Magwitch may appear a cruel and horrible man, but he was forced into a life of
criminality out of necessity. He explains to Pip and Herbert how he has done almost
everything in his criminal career except being hanged (293). From a young age Magwitch was
forced to steal turnips in order to feed himself after he is orphaned:
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“I first become aware of myself, down in Essex, a-thieving turnips for my living.
Summun had run away from me – a man – a thinker – an he’d took the fire with him,
and left me wery cold.” (293)
He went in and out of prison, and in the (early) Victorian period prison was a means to punish
not to reform (Frost 133). It was not uncommon for children to be imprisoned, mostly on
account of stealing, vagrancy and begging all crimes caused by poverty. As Ginger Frost
points out a high rate of recidivism was unsurprising “as the main cause of juvenile crime was
poverty, and the Victorian criminal justice system did little to address it” (133). In prison
many children acquired mentors of the “entirely wrong sort” because boys and girls were not
separated from adult criminals (Frost 133). As Magwitch himself explains people lectured
him about the devil and how he would be punished for his actions, but those speeches did not
fill his stomach. Magwitch’s criminal career continues as he grows up and he was involved in
some:
“tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could – though that warn’t as
often as you may think ... a bit of most things that don’t pay and lead to trouble, I got
to be a man. A deserting soldier in a Travellers’ Rest ... I warn’t locked up as often
now as formerly, but I wore out my good share of key-metal still.” (294)
Magwitch’s history explains how he had an unfortunate start and unlike Pip had no way out.
Gradually the convict becomes more human, and despite his flaws and sins one can see that
the convict not necessarily has to be a bad person at heart or at least has changed for the
better. But is this change enough to avoid a bad death?
Magwitch is convinced that his death is a sign of salvation from God. Although his
past and the circumstances under which he is tried normally would be enough for a character
such as the convict to deserve a bad death. In court Magwitch speaks his mind: “[r]ising for a
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moment, a distinct speck of his face in this way of light, the prisoner said, ‘My Lord, I have
received my sentence of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours’” (389). For Magwitch
there is only one judge and despite the fact that he need to bow to court, he has faith in God’s
intentions. Magwitch understands that he is dying and his injuries allow him to await his
sentence in the hospital, for him this is God’s way of saving him from an even harder stay in
prison. Despite the enormous amount of physical pain he is more than able to attain a good
Christian death; Magwitch is calm, at peace and full of confidence. Magwitch is despite his
physical agony not mad but completely aware of what is happening. He even symbolically
stares at the ceiling as if he welcomes what awaits him (Joseph and Tucker 111). Regardless
of his past, his sins and against all odds Magwitch passes away peacefully accompanied by
the boy he loves and who will pray for his soul:
with a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my yielding to
it and assisting it, he raised my hands to his lips. Then he gently let it sink upon his
breast again, with his own hands lying on it. The placid look at the white ceiling came
back, and passed away, and his head dropped quietly on his breast.
Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men who
went up into the Temple to pray, and I knew there were no better words that I could
say beside his bed, than “O Lord, be merciful to him, a sinner!” (391)
One would expect Magwitch’s death to be an excruciating affair full of pain and fear. But this
deathbed shows that even the meanest of men can repent and through helping another helpless
creature become a better man.
How different Magwitch’s death is from that of Arthur, who dies a typical welldeserved bad death. As Magwitch tells Pip and Herbert: “‘He was in a Decline, and was a
shadow to look at ... Arthur was a-dying, and a-dying poor and with the horrors on him’”
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(295). Arthur on his deathbed, whether this is caused by illness or guilt, is delirious and sees
the ghost of Miss Havisham who threatens to dress him in a shroud: “‘she’s got a shroud
hanging over her arm, and she says she’ll put it on me at five in the morning’” (295). When he
finally dies it is a violent affair:
“He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes of five, and then he
starts up with a scream, and screams out, ‘Here she is! She’s got the shroud again.
She’s unfolding it. She’s coming out of the corner. She’s coming to the bed. Hold me,
both on you – one of each side – don’t let her touch me with it. Ha! She missed me
that time. Don’t let here throw it over my shoulders. Don’t let her lift me up to get it
round me. She’s lifting me up. Keep me down!’ Then he lifted himself up, and was
dead.” (296)
The Bad Deaths in Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë’s harrowing novel Wuthering Heights is full of violence, tragedy, death, and
even ghosts haunt the Heights. The characters are passionate and highly emotional, but as
Barbara Hardy shows, passion and strong feelings are by no means a guarantee of moral
strength (97). Cathy and Heathcliff the most passionate of all the characters, but not
necessarily the ones with the strongest morals. Even Catherine seems to be aware that her
strong feelings for Heathcliff can deny her a possible place in heaven:
“I was only going to say that heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my
heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung
me out, into the middle of the heath on top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke
sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the other, I’ve not more
business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven.” (80)
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Almost all the deaths in Wuthering Heights can be seen in the light of the evangelical bad
death, especially when one takes into consideration the different possibilities of self-inflicted
death. The deathbeds are prolonged affairs of illness, ailments and sickbeds which in some
cases last for months.
Catherine Linton’s death begins two months prior to her actual deathbed. Cathy’s
death is a bad death: she is unprepared due to her illness, unconscious when she passes, and
her death by some is regarded as an accidental suicide after which she comes back to haunt
the Heights and its inhabitants. She intended to sicken herself by refusing food and never
deliberately want to kill herself, but because of her actions she suddenly falls ill beyond the
point of recovery. Barbara Gates calls Cathy’s death a form of destruction (9), and she suggest
that Cathy by her actions commits suicide. Although Catherine starves herself, she does not
intend to die: “‘No, I’ll not die – he’d be glad – he does not love me at all – he would never
miss me!’” (112). Her actions foremost served to punish Edgar Linton. But, despite not
intentionally wanting to harm herself, she does believe that she is dying:
“And I dying! I on the brink of the grave! My god! Does he know how I’m altered?”
continued she, staring at her reflection in a mirror hanging against the opposite wall.
“Is that Catherine Linton?” (112)
Catherine no longer is able to recognize her own reflection and is afraid to die, and although
her actual deathbed is months later she seems to be punished for her actions.
After her death Catherine is not rewarded with heaven but, as in her dream, remains on
earth to haunt the Heights. For Gates, apart from the religious motif of punishment for
committing suicide, the allusion to Yorkshire folklore traditions are important as well. As
Gates explains, the scene before Cathy’s mirror already suggests her fate. She is shocked,
confused and scared when she sees her own reflection because:
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she seems to understand what Yorkshire folklore dictates: that sick people should
never look at themselves in a mirror. If they do, their soul may take flight from their
weak bodies by being projected into the mirror, and thus cause their death. (9)
Cathy is terrified when she looks at the mirror and fails to recognize her own image. She
already considers herself to be a ghost, a punishment fed by her superstitious beliefs that
suicides after death become ghosts (Gates 9). The room appears haunted to Catherine she is
convinced she sees a face and refers to the mirror as an “it”:
“It does appear odd – I see a face in it!” ... “Don’t you see that face?” she inquired,
gazing earnestly at the mirror ... “It’s behind there still!” she pursued, anxiously. “And
it stirred. Who is it? I hope it will not come out when you are gone! Oh! Nelly, the
room is haunted! I’m afraid of being alone!”
I took her hand in mine, and bid her to be composed; for a succession of
shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze towards the
glass.
“There’s nobody there!” I insisted. “It was yourself, Mrs. Linton: you knew it a
while since.”
“Myself!” she gasped, “and the clock is striking twelve! It’s true, then!—
That’s dreadful!” (114)
Catherine is genuinely terrified, for she believes she will die any moment, and not only has
she been brought up in an extremely religious environment, but the superstitions and folklore
are also ingrained in her system of belief. For Cathy, in her state of delirium, all these little
superstitious elements are signs of her bad fate. Her mental state is far from would it should
be to acquire a good death, however, Catherine does not die immediately but develops a brain
fever which creates a drawn out deathbed.
Two month later Catherine Linton finally passes away. Despite the moment that has
elapsed between the scene with the mirror and her actual death, she still has not made any
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peace or development towards a good death. Even in her last moments Catherine is a spiteful
creature. As Nelly Dean points out, Catherine and Heathcliff make a “strange and fearful
picture. Well might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her, unless with
her mortal body she cast away her mortal character also” (142). Much like the dream
Catherine had earlier, she does not long for heaven even on her deathbed, all she wants and
claims to need is Heathcliff: “‘I shall not be at peace,’ moaned Catherine ... ‘I only wish us
never to be parted: and should a word of mine distress you hereafter, think I feel the same
distress underground’” (142). Cathy on her deathbed looks nothing like the prescribed figure
in the Ars Moriendi, she is wild and savage and not ready to submit to God’s will. The
description given by Nelly describes a countenance with a wild vindictiveness in its white
cheek, bloodless lips and scintillating eyes while grasping her hair (142); even Heathcliff asks
her “‘are you possessed with a devil,’ he pursued, savagely, ‘to talk in that manner to me
when you are dying?’” (142). But when the moment finally comes and Catherine dies: “two
hours after [the birth] the mother died, having never recovered sufficient consciousness to
miss Heathcliff, or know Edgar” (146), nor did Catherine have the opportunity to repent.
Catherine made herself sick, possibly accidentally set in motion her own death. During her
final moments she was unconscious, and when she was awake she was never submissive nor
calm. Traditionally in Victorian fiction a death of a good woman, usually a (young) mother,
or a child would mark innocence and sweetness (Reed 168). Catherine’s death does bring
about a lot of sentimental reactions from those left behind. However, when this young mother
dies she finds no peace and comes back to haunt Heathcliff like the ghosts she feared so much
two months before her death. Years later, when Lockwood late at night tries to stop the
rattling of the branches against his window, he reaches out:
To seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of
a little, ice-cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw
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back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, “Let me
in—let me in!” “Who are you?” I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself.
“Catherine Linton,” it replied ... “I’m come home: I’d lost my way on the moor!” (36)
The young hand Lockwood grasps is that of child, because Catherine returned to the moors of
her youth when she was happy.
Much like the death of his beloved Catherine, Heathcliff’s death can be seen as a
curious case of suicide. Heathcliff does commit suicide, but unlike Catherine, he is
immediately after his death rewarded with his reunion with Catherine: Heathcliff dies a ‘bad’
good death.
Technically Heathcliff’s death can be ruled a suicide. He undergoes dramatic changes
in his personality after a “curious hunting accident” (Gates 11) while he was alone in the hills:
owing to an accident at the commencement of March, he became for some days a
fixture in the kitchen. His gun burst while out on the hills by himself; a splinter cut his
arm, and he lost a good deal of blood before he could reach home. (259)
The accident happens after the incident of Lockwood and Catherine’s ghost where Heathcliff
begs her to come home and haunt him: “[Heathcliff] got on to the bed ... ‘Come in! Come in!’
he sobbed. ‘Cathy, do come. Oh, do—once more! Oh! My heart’s darling! Hear me this time,
Catherine, at last!’” (39). Catherine has come home after she was “lost”, therefore it is quite
possible that Heathcliff attempted to shoot himself. For Heathcliff heaven, as much as it did
for Catherine, would be no reward after life for Catherine would not be there. Any possible
consequence for committing suicide would not scare Heathcliff with regard to his immortal
soul. When Heathcliff’s death finally is at hand and there are some noticeable changes in his
character, Nelly Dean asks him whether or not he is afraid of death: “‘Afraid? No!’ he replied.
‘I have neither a fear, nor a pre-sentiment, nor a hope of death’” (269). Heathcliff says he
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“probably shall, remain above ground till there is scarcely a black hair on [his] head” (269).
But, even despite his attitudes and healthy constitution, he must remind himself to breathe:
“yet I cannot continue in this condition! I have to remind myself to breathe – almost to remind
my heart to beat” (269). Slowly Heathcliff declines to take his meals and he wants to be left
alone. Soon Heathcliff explains how he from his own hell gradually moves towards his
heaven. Earth without Catherine, even without the visitations of her ghost, for Heathcliff was
a hell from which he could not escape, but now: “Last night I was on the threshold of hell. Today, I am within sight of my heaven” (272). Later Heathcliff again mentions his version of
heaven: “‘I tell you I have nearly attained my heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued
and uncoveted by me”’ (276). Now it is Nelly’s turn to compare the dying with a demon or a
devil: “‘Is he a ghoul or a vampire?’ I mused” (273).
Heathcliff’s death can be seen in the light of another suicide attempt; Cathy’s death.
Like Cathy he starves himself to death. Nelly accuses him of being unchristian and selfish:
“how unfit will you be for [God’s] heaven, unless a change takes place before you die?”
(276). But, no change will take place in Heathcliff that would allow him the traditional good
evangelical death. Throughout Heathcliff’s final days the heated arguments between him and
Nelly suggest his intentions, and Nelly’s disapproval and fear – feelings and sentiments
shared by most other Victorians. On his deathbed Heathcliff curses Nelly and the doctor when
they want to attend to him and the following evening:
Mr. Heathcliff was there – laid on his back. His eyes met mine so keen and fierce, I
startled; and then he seemed to smile. I could not think him dead: but his face and
throat were washed with rain; the bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still. The
lattice, flapping to and fro, had grazed one hand that rested on the still; no blood
trickled from the broken skin, and when I put my fingers to it, I could doubt no more:
he was dead and stark!
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Learning to Die
I hasped the window; I combed the black long hair from his forehead; I tried to
close his eyes: to extinguish, if possible, that frightful, life-like gaze of exultation
before anyone else beheld it. (277)
Nelly tries her best to erase the signs of ecstasy of Heathcliff’s face, because for her suicide is
a capital sin. She conceals the fact that Heathcliff refused his meals for four days “fearing that
it might lead to trouble, and then, I am persuaded, he did not abstain on purpose: it was the
consequence of his strange illness, not the cause” (278). Heathcliff’s death is problematic for
Nelly Dean as well as the greater part of Victorian society: not only did he probably
intentionally starve himself to death, but he is rewarded after his death as well. Finally is he
reunited with his Catherine and finds peace.
It was for the Victorians hard to imagine that sleepers such as Cathy and Heathcliff, or
Hindley who drank himself to death, could possibly slumber quietly. As Lockwood muses
when he visits the three graves:
I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the
heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and
wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that
quiet earth. (279)
How can these creatures possibly find peace after death. The customs surrounding suicide
during the eighteenth and nineteenth century still were very much alive during the time when
Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights: “the legal and moral implications of suicide and the
folklore ... they generated took deep hold in Victorian Britain” (Gates 112). Suicide, although
no longer criminalized after 1823, still was much ingrained in culture as a personal sin against
God, and it was virtually unthinkable that anyone who (deliberately) brought on his or her
own death could find peace and salvation thereafter.
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Conclusion
The deathbed scene in Victorian fiction serves a bigger purpose than simply add melodrama
to the plot. Victorians may or may not have been obsessed with death and melodrama;
literature often can give the wrong impression or enhance the idea of Victorian obsession.
Novels do feature a large number of deathbeds, funerals, processions and black clothed
mourners, but the deathbed scene in Victorian fiction foremost is a moralising tool with a
pervasive religious theme.
The deathbed functions primarily as a warning of the importance of being a good
Christian and to always be prepared for death. The message often was that one needed to
aspire to be more like Little Nell, Tiny Tim or Little Eva in order to live and die properly. The
salvation of the soul remained an important subject, both in fiction and reality. As Holubetz
says: “the reader is invited to share the grief of mourners and to take to heart the lessons
learned from exemplary piety of a dying saint or the horrible example of a sinner’s agony”
(17). Victorian fiction not only taught how to die, but instructed its readers how they should
aspire to live; a lesson Scrooge learns in A Christmas Carol.
The deathbed was not only moralising, gradually it became more consolatory in tone
with the reassuring message that even sinners (eventually) can be at peace. Characters as
Tess, Magwitch, Scrooge and even Heathcliff and Cathy showed the Victorian audience that a
person with bad luck but a good heart, or one who properly repents his or her sins, can be
rewarded after death. Tess and Magwitch lived, according to Victorian conventions, lives full
of sin and should not be able to die peacefully or be rewarded after death. But the authors
show that they have more faith in divine judgement than social conduct. Even the sinners
Catherine and Heathcliff are rewarded after suicide by a reunion in their own heaven.
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