Storytelling and Death

When reading Benjamin's essay I was fascinated by the section about death and storytelling. I had never before thought about the connections between storytelling and the general consciousness about death. It is very true in today's society that people have made it possible "to avoid the sight of dying" (6). Death is a subject that is almost taboo in American culture. It had never occurred to me that our fear and inability to cope with death could stem from our lack of discussion and storytelling.

Here is a practical application of literature (spoken literature). Why should we read? Why tell stories? Instead of hiding death we should learn to cope by talking about it. This is where I think the Marxist aspect of Benjamin's essay really begins to shine through. Death should be imbued in culture, it should be talked about. Discussion of death is much healthier than avoiding the sight of it altogether.

I think too that talking about things and telling stories is a very human way of working through life's problems and mysteries. It is our attempt at explaining the unexplainable. When we stop discussing death, and stop bequeathing our knowledge from generation to generation then death becomes a mystery one more. Something more feared than revered.

This again brings to light our culture's current fascination with solitude. Death is too big of a mystery to tackle alone. It is one of those fundamental ties between all of humanity, and we should treat it as such. A powerful combining factor rather than something to be hush-hushed. The unknown is always scarier than the known.

Storytelling may seem obsolete in this day and age, but this small section of Benjamin's essay proves this wrong. In certain areas of culture a novel simply will not suffice. Human interaction has its benefits. We were not made to be solitary creatures who sit and read alone, reveling in our individual experience. Some things are collective, such as death, and they can only be truly dissected in a collective manner such a storytelling.