To see whether Ariès’ death mentalities are still visible in the 21st century, I analysed the novel Letters to the Lost by Brigid Kemmerer. This book tells the story of Juliet Young and Declan Murphy, but for the sake of interpreting death mentalities, I will solely focus on Juliet’s story, as she is the one who is dealing with the loss of her mother.

Juliet’s mother was a famous photojournalist, and when she was still alive, Juliet would write letters to her when she was away on distant journeys. When her mother passed away, Juliet kept up this tradition and started to leave the letters at her mother’s grave. This is Juliet’s only way to cope with the loss of someone close to her.

In this manner of dealing with death, we can clearly see the ‘your death’ mentality seeping through. Juliet mourns her mother, and in order to process the loss, Juliet keeps writing letters to her. This shows that she does not want to accept the fact that her mother is really gone, and this fits the ‘your death’ mentality perfectly. Juliet also kept a lot of her mother’s photographs, which is also in accord with this particular death mentality. Juliet wants to remember her mother as much as possible, and she does this by keeping what remains of her.

So, this example shows that, although the ‘your death’ death mentality already existed hundreds of years ago, this way of coping with death can still be seen in the 21th century.

References

Kemmerer, B. (2017). Letters to the Lost. London, England: Bloomsbury Children’s Books.