The Dying Of The Light

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

So wrote Dylan Thomas, thereby immotalising the death of his father. There is a longstanding association between the personal melancholia of artists and their creative fascination with death, whether seen through the lens of longing, fear, ambivalence, courage, despair, relief or some more complex commingling, with poetry acting as a powerful meidum for such thoughts. Frequently, however it is death in the form of suicide which prevails: Anne Sexton, like her friend and contemporary, Sylvia Plath, was prolific on the subject of suicide (which, eventually, they both committed). Eloquent and sharp, her poem Wanting to Die makes this observation:

 

But suicides have a special language.

Like carpenters they want to know which tools.

They never ask why build.

 

By this logic, the need for death is obvious, predetermined: it goes without saying. But human beings are fragile, pain-filled creatures. There are few pleasant ways for us to die, and fewer still by our own hand. In the days of ancient Rome, suicide was a socially accepted practice, particularly when, as was often the case, staying alive would only provoke one mad emperor or another to kill you in a far more unpleasantly creative manner than slitting your wrists in a warm bath. Classic literature even romanticises the concept – Romeo and Juliet is the obvious example, but particularly in feudal Japan, love-suidice pacts were a tragic staple of Yoshiwara society. More recently, George Orwell’s 1984 created a whole new horror from the concept: a violent, inescapably totalitarian world in which even the freedom to die has been effectively withdrawn, forcing the populace to endure a life of brutality and fear. 

 

Historically, the human reaction to suicide has been mixed. Judeo-Christian believers tend to respond in the negative, on the grounds that the act falls squarely within the definition of murder, which is a sin. Others view it as a human right or individual freedom, drawing a moral distinction between how we treat ourselves and how we should treat others. Either way, the concept of a situation in which anyone would want to die tends, rightly, to make us uncomfortable. 

 

Which leads us to the problem of euthenasia, and what it means. Despite longstanding anecdotal evidence and social speculation, keeping a positive attitude makes no medical difference in fighting cancer, which, though true, undercuts an extremely powerful (and useful) instinct for suvival. Because human beings, though mortal, do not like to confront their own mortality. Implausible hope has a place in our universal pantheon: if nothing else, it keeps us sane, gives us strength and can, on occasion, help us hang on long enough for the cavalry to arrive. But it’s not a panacea, and at times, the easier, braver, more honest path is to accept the inevitable, the better to meet it gracefully. This latter point is held by euthenasia advocates, because once you have acknowledged that a painful death can’t be averted, unless you believe in the innate sinfulness of removing yourself from the world, there is a certain logic to ending matters peacefully, on your own terms.

 

Consider, then, the heart-wrenching case of Angelique Flowers, who died – violently, vomiting fecal matter – at the age of 31. Having suffered Crohne’s Disease for half her life, she was then diagnosed with terminal bowel cancer. She didn’t fear dying, but only the pain it would, inevitably, cause her. Before she died, Angelique devoted much of her time to exploring the possibility of euthenasia, which isn’t legal in Australia, and although she fultimately obtained a drug which would’ve allowed her to die peacefully, she chose not to use it: either through fear of repercussions for her family or a final change of heart, we’ll never know. But for me, the point of legalising euthenasia is choice: one which allows a greater scope for both dignity and courage. We do not jail those who attempt suicide and fail; neither should we punish the dying by demanding that they expire in a prolonged, painful fashion.

 

Because mercy is not always the same as a happy ending. Sometimes, it just means a lessened measure of grief.

 

Brave New Worlds

There’s a particular sci-fi/fantasy subgenre to which I’ve always been partial: dystopia. Writers of all shades have been understandably fascinated by it, from George Orwell and Aldous Huxley to Isobelle Carmody and Joss Whedon. There’s a dreadful allure to the idea of society reaching its technological peak, dissolving into cataclysm and then rebuilding from fragments, or else morphing into some non-functional travesty as the ultimate consequence of current politics. Dystopia is a potent combination of our most powerful fears and hopes: fear, that we will destroy utterly what is safe and familiar, and hope, that we might yet survive the experience. It evokes a deeply satisfying narrative cynicism, wherein the reader can sit back and feel utterly validated in their belief that we’re all going to hell in a handbasket, because that’s what humanity does, as well as providing fertile ground for in-jokes, like future archaeologists confusing the jukebox and the iPod.

Still, there are different kinds of dystopia. Forced to choose between the societies of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World, the latter is unequivocally preferable: it’s certainly warped, but compared to the inescapable brutality of Orwell’s London, Huxley’s alternative of sex, clones and soma looks like a candyland. In books like Scatterlings and Obernewtyn, Isobelle Carmody’s dystopia hinges on a struggling, semi-agrarian, post-nuclear holocaust world, where technology is elevated to the level of magic (and where actual magic makes an appearance, too). Unsurprisingly, the most popular dystopia is also the kindest, stretching to the borderlands of straight sci-fi. To paraphrase Joss Whedon’s summary of his comic, Fray, this version of the future is much like everyone else’s: the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and there’s flying cars. These four variations more or less encapsulate the different subgenres of dystopia: political warning (Orwell),  what if (Huxley), neo-feudalism (Carmody) and same-but-worse (Whedon). Creatively and imaginatively, it’s the latter two which hold the most sway; and with examples like The Fifth Element and Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies, it’s easy to see why. 

Because for all it hinges on distruction, dystopia can be devilishly joyful. We savour it, not sadistically, but because it represents the ultimate escapism: seeing the rules and restrictions of our own society wrecked, inverted and removed. Just as children fantasise about blowing up their school, adults fantasise about society crumbling – not out of anger or a desire to hurt, but simply because they, like their younger counterparts, don’t always want to attend. On this base level, dystopia is the glee of impractical opportunism: without actually having to live through a cataclysm, we thrill to imagine what role we’ll take in the new order of things, or wonder how that order might arise. Although the characters struggle, the audience doesn’t: instead, we live vicariously through survivors of a world which would most likely break us.

We’re funny like that.

Since Huxley’s novel, brave new world has become synonymous with an ironic, stunted dystopia, drained of hope: we hear the phrase, and any laughter is mocking. But Huxley was quoting Shakespeare, as his book makes clear: Miranda’s lines from The Tempest. A naive girl raised on an unknown island, Miranda has never encountered villany or vice; and when finally confronted with the prospect of other people – schemers, drunkards, sages and politicians all – she is overjoyed.  ‘Oh, brave new world/that has such people in’t!’  Here, then, is the ultimate source of Huxley’s cynical title, and a perfect metaphor for dystopia: beautiful youth embracing a more treacherous future than it can possibly realise.

Which is why, in another dystopian in-joke, the Reaver-world in Joss Whedon’s film Serenity is called Miranda. Meta-cathartic, ne?