The "beautiful death"

It is in the hidden visibility, in the modesty and in the shame that the issue of viewing the body of the dead takes shape, going towards the phantasmal aspect (aspect of fantasy) linked to the dead. If sexuality seems less veiled as compared to the classical era, death in itself has become a taboo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inÁgora (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) Vol. 15; no. 1; p. 15
Main Author Laufer, Laurie
Format Journal Article
LanguagePortuguese
Published Rio de Janeiro Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Programa de Pós-graduação em Teoria Psicanalítica 01.01.2012
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Summary:It is in the hidden visibility, in the modesty and in the shame that the issue of viewing the body of the dead takes shape, going towards the phantasmal aspect (aspect of fantasy) linked to the dead. If sexuality seems less veiled as compared to the classical era, death in itself has become a taboo and withdraws itself into the private sphere, into a psychological intimacy, what Ariès calls "the barbarization of death". Concerning Flaubert, writing about the death of Emma Bovary, the imagery of the body's decomposition and of death creates a repressed, "halo-ed" imagery. The censor process against Madame Bovary is, in this respect, symbolic of society's repression of the representation of death.
ISSN:1516-1498
1809-4414
DOI:10.1590/S1516-14982012000100002