“So then, what do you believe in?”
“Sex and death. Two things that come once in my lifetime.
But at least after death you’re not nauseous.”
—Woody Allen
Sigmund Freud, many feel, was responsible for the notion that human beings are driven by two powerful but opposing forces or drives, lust (eros) and death (thanatos). One can lead to procreation and perpetuation, the other to cessation and (perhaps) oblivion.
But human beings have been putting a face on both Lust and Death long before Freud got his MD in Vienna. And humans, being creative and somewhat perverse, would sometimes pair the two.
Not sex and death, sex with death.
In the 1400s, Europe had its fair share of troubles, what with the Hundred Years’ War and the ever-popular Black Death. The Black Death, the species highpoint for rats and fleas the world over, killed off 30-60% of the population. (That’s a big disparity, and one only hopes that the next plague—zombies?— will keep better records.) By the way, here’s a fun fact for you rodent buffs: some of the Plague was spread by marmots, but historians seem loath to say that Europe was nearly wiped out by woodchucks.
Anyway, all this death and decay got artists thinking. Death struck everyone down, whether king or pauper, young or old, naughty or nice. This led to various allegorical paintings called The Dance of Death (Danse Macabre) where Death leads various folks in a conga line with an unpleasant destination: the grave. Poe, of course, revisited this gruesome theme in 1842 with the ultimate party crasher in “The Masque of the Red Death,” and it would be 135 years before John Travolta and the Bee Gees would strike back for party hosts everywhere with “Stayin’ Alive” in Saturday Night Fever (1977).
Because human beings are not content with the same old same old, someone came up with a wrinkle—Death “dancing” with one partner. These works usually featured Death as a sinister, decaying fellow fondling a comely maiden. One of the best known of these works is Der Tod und das Mädchen, painted in 1517 by Hans Baldung, a student of Albrecht Dürer. What I find remarkable about this work is not that the woman cowers before this rotting corpse, but that there is an erotic subtext to the painting—she cowers, but she is also attracted to him.
Of course, various mythological tales often portrayed the love of Death for a mortal, Death sometimes being the lonely king or queen of the underworld. Such tales seem as old as storytelling itself.
In the years since, the arts and popular culture have visited this theme again and again—Death pairing up with various partners. Sometimes Death is represented by a handsome actor, whether Fredric March in Death Takes a Holiday (1934) or Brad Pitt in the remake Meet Joe Black (1998). Sometimes Death is a handsome/beautiful vampire, or mummy, or ghost, but we all know that, for most, Death represents corruption and decay, worm food that will leave behind bones that eventually turn to dust.
In a world of zombies (in whatever form—supernatural, Romeroesque, slow or fast), why would anyone choose to love and/or lust after them? Is it some primal desire to pair those great id urges, eros and thanatos? Is it a means to hold on to a loved one? A chance to rekindle humanity, in both the undead and the living? Is it for revenge, or a perverse attraction to rot and ruin? Is it rebellion against convention, to pursue the ultimate bad boy or girl, who rots and hungers for us quite literally?
There is no single answer. Humans can’t be pigeonholed into neat little compartments. We defy normality, we eschew the average. We question, we invent, we explore. The reasons for such pairings would be as diverse as we are.
Before you are fourteen remarkable tales that examine the directions that Love and/or Lust may take when Death is personified, when the grave is no longer for restful sleep, but rather the awakening of dreadful (and all too human) appetites.
Be moved, be aroused…and be alert for the scratching at your bedroom door.