The Ontology of Death : The Philosophy of the Death Penalty in Literature

Through examination of the death penalty in literature, Aaron Aquilina contests Heidegger’s concept of ‘being-towards-death’ and proposes a new understanding of the political and philosophical subject. Dickens, Nabokov, Hugo, Sophocles and many others explore capital punishment in their works, from A Tale of Two Cities to Invitation to a Beheading. Using these varied case studies, Aquilina demonstrates how they all highlight two aspects of the experience. First, they uncover a particular state of being, or more precisely non-being, that comes with a death sentence, and second they reveal how this state exists beyond death row, as sovereignty and alterity are by no means confined to a prison cell. In contrast to Heidegger’s being-towards-death, which individualises the subject – only I can die my own death – this book argues that, when condemned to death, the self and death collide. Be it death row or not, when the supposed futurity of death is brought into the here and now, we encounter what Aquilina calls ‘relational death’. Living on with death severs the subject’s relation to itself, the other and political sociality as a whole, rendering the human less a named and recognisable ‘being’ than an anonymous ‘living corpse’, a human thing. In a sustained engagement with Blanchot, Levinas and Derrida’s Death Penalty seminars, The Ontology of Death articulates a new theory of the subject, beyond political subjectivity defined by sovereignty and beyond the Heideggerian notion of ontological selfhood. Through examination of the death penalty in literature, Aaron Aquilina contests Heidegger's concept of 'being-towards-death' and proposes a new understanding of the political and philosophical subject. Dickens, Nabokov, Hugo, Sophocles and many others explore capital punishment in their works, from Antigone to Invitation to a Beheading . Using these varied case studies, Aquilina demonstrates how they all highlight two aspects of the experience. First, they uncover a particular state of being, or more precisely non-being, that comes with a death sentence, and, second, they reveal how this state exists beyond death row, as sovereignty and alterity are by no means confined to a prison cell. In contrast to Heidegger's being-towards-death, which individualizes the subject – only I can die my own death, supposedly – this book argues that, when condemned to death, the self and death collide, putting under erasure the category of subjectivity itself. Be it death row or not, when the supposed futurity of death is brought into the here and now, we encounter what Aquilina calls 'relational death'. Living on with death severs the subject's relation to itself, the other and political sociality as a whole, rendering the human less a named and recognizable 'being' than an anonymous 'living corpse', a human thing. In a sustained engagement with Blanchot, Levinas, Hegel, Agamben and Derrida, The Ontology of Death articulates a new theory of the subject, beyond political subjectivity defined by sovereignty and beyond the Heideggerian notion of ontological selfhood. Half Title 2 Series Page 3 Title Page 4 Copyright Page 5 Dedication 6 Contents 8 Preface 9 Acknowledgements 10 Abbreviations 12 Introduction: Literature, questions, death 14 Dead politics 16 Literature’s sword 23 Chapter 1: The Instant of My Death 32 Chapter 2: Death penalties 50 Horses 50 For whom the bell tolls 51 The impossibility of my death 61 Chapter 3: Missing death 76 Station: Limbo 76 Living corpses 79 Acknowledgement contra recognition 93 Chapter 4: After death, anonymity 108 Angels and demons 108 The unbecoming subject 110 The human thing 123 Chapter 5: The death of no one 138 Who? What? 138 Anonymous voices 139 Sovereign (without) subjects 149 Conclusion: The death of me 164 Notes 172 Bibliography 214 Index 231