The cliched expression "Everyone has a story" speaks as much truth as a pastor does during the climax of his weekly sermon (depending on your religious beliefs, of course). Some who are fortunate (or perhaps not so fortunate) get the chance to see their names in print, whether it's on the cover of a best-selling autobiography or above a less-than-flattering photograph on the front of a tabloid magazine. Unfortunately, oftentimes these stories have a tragic end, be it drug overdose or some other accident that shocks the world.
It's true that everyone has a story, but are some stories worth more than others? Would the president of the United States' life take up an entire trilogy, while the life of some poor mother who died in an alleyway with a starving babe in her arms consists of several sympathetic lines in the local obituary? Why do famous figures such as Joe Paterno and Michael Jackson receive months, even years of press after their deaths, while a woman with over thirty grandchildren who left behind a legacy of love gets a three-minute news report? Just a thought for you to chew on.
Death and the emotions associated with it are certainly not limited to real-life celebrities. Just a few examples of famous literary characters whose lives end prematurely at the hands of themselves or another human being are Okonkwo from Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, Mariam from Khaleed Housseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Edna from Kate Chopin's The Awakening. Two out of three of these deaths were suicide, and one was an execution for murder. All of these characters came from vastly different backgrounds and surroundings, but a premature death was something they all had in common. (Excuse my morbidity, after a while the things you read in English class start to affect the way you think whether you want them to or not.)
Let's take a break from discussing literature and move into the realm of film. Ever seen the Robin Williams movie Dead Poets Society? *SPOILER ALERT* If so, then you know that the title of the film is quite literal, as one of the main characters ends up committing suicide when he realizes that he is trapped between his dreams of being an actor and the life that his father is forcing upon him which involves going to medical school. The scene where Neil kills himself is undebatably the most devastating moment in the movie. Why does the death of his character have such a powerful effect on the audience?
The answer is quite simple, really: because it is a death. There is nothing on earth more permanent than the loss of life, and that's why it hits us so hard when a fictional character in a book or movie suffers a tragic end- because we understand the finality of it.
I was really struck at the end of Things Fall Apart when the thoughts of the District Commissioner who had been in charge of "conquering" Okonkwo's African village were revealed to us. One of those thoughts was that he should mention Okonkwo in the novel he was planning on writing, but for no more than a paragraph. I was saddened by the thought that this man felt that Okonkwo's life- his goals and dreams, his hopes and ambitions, his successes, his failure, his moments of intense shame and immense triumph, could be packaged and condensed into several neatly written sentences.
The value of a life exceeds what justice best-selling books and movies that overturn the box office could do it. A life is unique and precious; something that, once it's gone, can't ever be replaced. I'm not saying that we should stop writing books or producing movies to honor those that have passed on. What I'm saying is that maybe we should stop and reflect on not only the famous people that have died, but also those who left this world with nothing but a birth certificate behind as a reminder of their existence (and not everyone is fortunate enough to even have one of those)... the millions of Jews that perished in the Holocaust, those HIV-ridden children in Africa, the soldier that spent his last breath saving the life of another, that old lady down the street whose name you could never remember... all of the nameless people whose lives mattered far beyond words.
-Kati Davis
