Literature

In the poems  When the Somber Slaughterhouse Opens Its Caverns of Death  by Andre Chenier and  The Village Bell  by Alphonse De Lamartine, the poets use symbolism to illustrate the human condition and the freedom of death. Cheniers piece uses the imagery of a slaughterhouse to show the dehumanization of human life as a mechanism which frees us from the restraints of death, while de Lamartine uses the image of a village bell as symbolic  of a kind of spiritual death toll that is equally universal. Both concentrate around the concept of the fallibility and mortality of human life, and highlight through their use of symbolism the fleeting nature of existence and the very personal and transcendent nature of death. Through their understanding of death they foster a sense of renewal in life itself embracing the individual life as a precious thing that is enhanced in the awareness of death.

Andre Cheniers poem uses the powerful imagery of the slaughterhouse and the combination of denial and awareness that accompany the presence of death. Seeing the slaughterhouse for what it is, a house of death, which provides purpose and profit from one of the most basic of human realities, highlights the impersonal yet universal experience of human death. The use of the slaughterhouse as a central idea in the poem is of particular importance because it is an obvious symbol. There can be no misunderstanding in the purpose of a slaughterhouse, as noted before it is a house of death but more importantly it creates a business of mortality. In the inner workings of a slaughterhouse create a distance from death as a spiritual cataclysm, breaking death down to a basic physical transition. Its presence in Cheniers imagined community, allows the people to live side by side with death while stubbornly refusing to make themselves a part of it and continuing the business of living.

Chenier clearly illustrates how community and the individual intersect and divide over the reality of death in the opening lines of his poem. The entire community is aware of the death happening in the slaughterhouse, man and animal,
Shepherds, dogs, the other sheep, the whole farm
Is no longer concerned with its fate.
The children who followed its sporting in the plain,
The maidens with lovely complexions  (ll. 3-6).

This awareness of death enhances their understanding of life through association, reminding them of their mortality  but giving reassurance in the fact that it is not their own death they are experiencing. While life can be felt from within the context of a larger community, seen in the daily actions and collective mentalities of life in large groups, death is universal and individual. The sheep that are herded into the slaughterhouse, to be killed and quartered, go in the doors as a group and their collective cry falls on deaf ears. There is denial in the actions of the townspeople,
Who crowded about to kiss it, and on its white wool
Tied knots of ribbons and flowers,
Without thinking of it further, eat it if it is tender,
Buried in this abyss (ll. 7-10).

There is no doubt in the details of this poem that the fate of these animals is unknown, however, by denying the fate of these sheep the people can deny their own fate. When their deaths are realized, they become part of another reality, and transition into a byproduct of life and lose their individuality. Chenier senses a universality not only in the realization of death but also its reception. His own fate, he comes to understand, is linked to the deaths of those sheep in the slaughterhouse. In societys reaction to death, part acknowledgment and part denial, the individual becomes lost,
Let us become accustomed to neglect.
Forgotten like me in this frightful lair,
A thousand other sheep, like me  (ll. 12-14).

Death becomes a matter of rote, to be forgotten behind closed doors, and the victims of human life become one in their shared experience.

Despite the dehumanization of the individual and the failure in confronting the connectedness of life to death, Chenier does not condemn this reaction. There should be a separation between life and death, because to be too concerned with death is to avoid the full benefits of living,
They were right to live.
Live, friends, live in contentment.
In spite of (Fonquier), be slow to follow me  (ll. 15-17).

In many ways the life the person will leave behind should be nurtured rather than the memory of their death. Here we can see the twofold manner in which Chenier uses the slaughterhouse, that at once negatively and positively portrays the mortality of human life. Humans are all just part of a larger construct, where at times the individual is lost in the masses. On the other hand, the impersonal nature of the death of the sheep illustrates a detachment that allows for the co-existence of life and death in the memory of an individual. While death retains its reality, through not dwelling on it in life but allowing for its inevitability the individual can more fully realize the potential for life while they are still fully part of it.

Just as the slaughterhouse is an obvious reference of death, the solemn toll of the bell in Alphonse de Lamartines poem acts as a universal symbol of mortality. The bell, reminiscent of John Donnes  Meditation 17,   The bell doth toll for him, that thinks it doth,  is a connection to a common metaphor even now used to symbolize death. Speaking to the child, who symbolizes youth, de Lamartine professes to love the bells  mystic voice that is faithful to death  (ll. 4). For him, it is a pure symbol that, like the slaughterhouse, does not cater to a sentimentality of death but rather a constant reminder of its existence. As a music of death, it is a background noise to life as the two are inextricably woven. Like the transition between individual notes in the song of the bell, the punctuations of life and death stand both alone as cycles of individual humanity and collectively as a song of nature. Life as we understand it cannot exist outside the context of death death however, can and should exist separately from life. Our deaths and the mortality of loved ones, should not act as a deterrent to a full enjoyment of life.

In fact, de Lamartine presents death itself as a kind of prison, a loss of freedom that can never be regained, with mourning an even worse fortress of unhappiness. As he illustrates in the third stanza of the poem, he wishes his death not to be an occasion for individual martyrdom in mourning,
Do not go begging tears from the horizon
But put on your festival voice, and ring over my tomb
with the joyous noise of a chain falling
On the free threshold of a prison  (21-24)

Life itself is to be lived and the sounds of death should be a reminder to live life to its fullest. While the sound of the bell is music to his ears in many respects, a companion to which he can count on in his daily errands, it is also a betrayer of unhappiness. It acts as a call to life and to death, a simultaneous symbol that serves both purposes in this poem, to show the drawing darkness of dwelling in death and the joy of release.

In the song of the bell, de Lamartine hears a celebration and lamentation for life that underlines the constant presence of death as a background to the functions of life. While the mechanics of human death can sometimes be brutal and are often, in the end, practical and devoid of humanity in its most obvious sense, they are rituals through which the commonality of mans end become part of living. Such rituals can be seen as indulgent of death, forcing a connectedness between the living and the dead that ultimately undermines the beauty of life. In describing his own impending death and the handling of his remains, De Lamartine does not mince words or evoke complex symbolism or language to describe deaths impersonal and dehumanizing mechanics,
when plowmen carry within my bier
The little of my dust that is to remain here below ...
when hired mourners, a cold and banal escort,
Deposit my sleeping body beneath the gate (ll.13-14  16-17).

To view the rituals of death as more important than the continuance of life, to dwell in the sadness of mortality is to deny one of its most important ideals to truly understand life we must accept death as part of it. By showing making the scene of his own burial a cold and impersonal affair, de Lamartine illustrates physical death as a mere trifle. Buried in the ground is not life but the shell by which it navigated its brief existence. In this way, there is no need for sadness in the confrontation of physical death nor should it be viewed as an ending. Instead, in experiencing and confronting death, humanity transcends to a new concept of life that is enriching in its acknowledgment of its temporary nature.

Much as Chenier encourages his friends to look beyond his death, to the joys and moments of living, de Lamartine stresses an acceptance of death. More so than Chenier, de Lamartine looks at the individual freedom inherent to death, whereby the chains fall away  on the free threshold of a prison  (ll. 24). Death is a turn in the spiritual cycle begun at birth and continued after, as we move from the confines of our physical bodies and transcend to a higher place of being. The sadness of the bell is a reminder but equally misleading symbol of death, that drapes this move from the temporal to the corporeal with its own black cloths. In mourning death, the process of human life as more than a simple physical existence becomes undermined and the continuance of life devalued.

Central to both poems is the idea that death must be realistically embraced death is neither shameful nor inhumane but instead a fulfillment of the cycle that is life. In the commonality of the symbols used to represent death, the slaughterhouse and the tolling church bell, both Chenier and de Lamartine are seeking to redefine the way in which we approach the notion of dying. Namely, they wish to transcend thinking of the notion altogether, to dwell in death is to commit a kind of suicide against your own happiness. For those who are buried in the ground, mourned from above, death is both a freedom and a prison. No longer can they enjoy both the debauched and pure reasoning of being alive, so in a way they are imprisoned in their own mortality. However, I think Chenier and de Lamartine strive to illustrate that death itself is nothing but nature carrying our spirit to another level, it is not to be feared or dwelled upon. It is an inevitability from the day we are born. Both show in the poems that to die is to transcend the dehumanization of society and to embrace the full spiritual and physical possibilities of life. Seeing physical death as impersonal ritual, enriches rather than denotes the concept of spiritual life. Physical death is the culmination of physical life by which man must transition before he can move to another spiritual plain. In this way, death is beautiful and simplistic, a compliment of life rather than a tragedy. For those left behind, death should act as an re-enforcer of life. Through death, man can recognize and embrace the full physical and spiritual possibilities of individual life.