SPOILER ALERT
I don't know if this thread exists yet, but here we are.
Which death scene from a novel, play or poem was the saddest, most gut-wrenching thing you've read so far.
For me it would be Anna Karenina's suicide, when she flung herself in front of the train. I somehow knew the story would have to end in tragedy, but her death was a literary experience I won't forget.
Last edited by Guinivere; 07-24-2008 at 12:42 PM.
My lifelong love affair with books and reading continues unaffected by automation, computers, and all other forms of the twentieth-century gadgetry.
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
Logan Pearsall Smith, 1931
Maybe you should put a spoiler alert at beginning of thread Gen.I for one havent read Anna Karenina
For me its those of Ruth In Gaskells book of same name and Adam in East of Eden. Oh and when Margaret Hales father dies in North and South.
"Come away O human child!To the waters of the wild, With a faery hand in hand, For the worlds more full of weeping than you can understand."
W.B.Yeats
"If it looks like a Dwarf and smells like a Dwarf, then it's probably a Dwarf (or a latrine wearing dungarees)"
Artemins Fowl and the Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer
my poems-please comment Forum Rules
Edgar Linton's death in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. As my second choice, I would mention Lady Elaine's death, as described in Tennyson's beautiful poem, The Lady Of Shalott.
Last edited by amalia1985; 07-22-2008 at 07:15 AM.
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe that they are free.
-Goethe
DUMBLEDORE, hands down, the saddest death EVAR. lol, i kid, i kid. wait, actually, i dont..
there really wasnt a more heart wrenching death that ive read, truthfully, especially when youve been hooked to the books and characters for more than half your lifetime.
and plus, i havent read many books with really sad deaths or anything..
That reminds me of the time when that book came out. Hours after its release somebody read the book quickly, made a huge banner and hung it on a motorway overpass on M25 (our busiest motorway (highway) in the UK) saying "A DUMBLEDORE DIES ON PAGE ...!" This has to be the funniest literary prank I heard about. The banner was removed by the authorities shortly but by then thousands of motorists and their kids (it was a Saturday morning) had seen it and it was in the press and on the BBC News etc.Originally Posted by wizrd
As far as the saddest deaths in literature are concerned, it has to be Cordelia's death in King Lear. I strongly believe that Lear is the greatest achievement of human imagination along with the Sistine ceiling and the altar and War and Peace. I first read Lear 20 years ago, one sunny winter morning and I cried and I started re-reading right away. I knew the whole play by heart within next couple of years along with Hamlet and Macbeth and it started my love-affair with literature which has been going on uninterrupted ever since:
Enter Lear, with Cordelia [dead] in his arms, [Edgar,
Captain,
and others following].
Lear. Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stone.
Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so
That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever!
I know when one is dead, and when one lives.
She's dead as earth. Lend me a looking glass.
If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,
Why, then she lives.
Kent. Is this the promis'd end?
Edg. Or image of that horror?
Alb. Fall and cease!
Lear. This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so,
It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows
That ever I have felt.
Kent. O my good master!
Lear. Prithee away!
Edg. 'Tis noble Kent, your friend.
Lear. A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have sav'd her; now she's gone for ever!
Cordelia, Cordelia! stay a little. Ha!
What is't thou say'st, Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle, and low- an excellent thing in woman.
I kill'd the slave that was a-hanging thee.
Capt. 'Tis true, my lords, he did.
Lear. Did I not, fellow?
I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion
I would have made them skip. I am old now,
And these same crosses spoil me. Who are you?
Mine eyes are not o' th' best. I'll tell you straight...
"The farther he goes the more good it does me. I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the sh1t the more I am grateful to him..."
-- Harold Pinter on Samuel Beckett
Saddest death in literature:
Gilliatt from "Toilers on the Sea" by Victor Hugo
I wrote a poem on a leaf and it blew away...
I agree with you, and i think that novel fill with sadness.Edgar Linton's death in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
and my second choice in an Arabian novel called "Abraham Alvarez", I cried a lot for his death.
I'm sorry. But i guess we will mention a lot of deaths in this thread. There's more to the book though than Anna dying. I'd recommend it to anyone.Maybe you should put a spoiler alert at beginning of thread Gen.
Oh and when Margaret Hales father dies in North and South.
I think Mr Hales death is very touching too. Especially the quiet way Margaret deals with it.
My lifelong love affair with books and reading continues unaffected by automation, computers, and all other forms of the twentieth-century gadgetry.
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
Logan Pearsall Smith, 1931
gatsby. and poor lolita's death was triple bad-luck. she wins for most miserable death.
Jake's death was mildly surprising, but Lolita's death was essential to the story, and the novel couldn't end with her alive.
I may sound childlish, but Nell from The Old Curiosity Shop stuck in my memory when I was a child and was going through a 'Dickens phase'... Many sad deaths from that phase, but Nell somehow struck me the most.
Anna Karenina, however, was one of the most disappointing literary deaths to me... I was more striked by Emma Bovary's death than her, I guess (and I really dislike that book) - but maybe it was because it was unexpected (I honestly had no idea that Emma would die, but my grandfather managed to spoil Anna for me when I was five years old).
I feel sorry for the people who are left behind after these great tragic deaths: Horatio, Kent, Charles Bovary etc. Another idea just struck me: Dostoevsky does not create martyrs. His heroes go on living after the tragic events. You feel sorry for them and all the pathos is created without anybody dying a glorious death. There are some very, very tragic situations and characters in Dostoevsky who continue to live in my imagination as martyrs without actually dying. I think as far as the tragic effect and sadness is concerned, death is over-rated and over-utilised!
"The farther he goes the more good it does me. I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the sh1t the more I am grateful to him..."
-- Harold Pinter on Samuel Beckett
Another thing, most peculiar death of a major character has to be Murphy's death in Samuel Beckett's novel Murphy. I will not spoil the fun but it is dark, humorous and very very unforgettable and sad at the same time.
"The farther he goes the more good it does me. I don’t want philosophies, tracts, dogmas, creeds, ways out, truths, answers, nothing from the bargain basement. He is the most courageous, remorseless writer going and the more he grinds my nose in the sh1t the more I am grateful to him..."
-- Harold Pinter on Samuel Beckett
This one repeatedly makes me cry.
Funny, as I was typing this, the itunes in the office where I'm working played the line 'to die by your side is such a heavenly place to die' from the Smiths song There is a light that never goes out.
For me the saddest death was the death of prince Andrei in War and Peace.
And I also sadden after Sorel's death in The red and the black.
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