Eros and Thanatos

What if my God was dead and I knew it? This was the question that kicked off In the Death of Winter, the most recent one of my stories to post on this site.

I didn't want to write about denial, or clinging to outdated beliefs. I wanted to write about a character persisting in a hope she knows to be false. Bolormaa, the main character, has been a priestess of the winter God Erlik for most of her life. Young when she devoted herself to him, she has grown old. Her relationship with the god was once powerful, brutal, and true, but he's gone now and isn't coming back.

"And they all lived happily ever after." It happens at the end of a fairy tale, to let the reader know that, no matter what horrors appeared in the course of the story, it all worked out in the end. You're safe now.

But what if you're not?

As far back as I can remember, there have been fairy tales that left me feeling unsettled. Hans Christian Anderson's version of "The Little Mermaid," or, worse, "The Little Match Girl." But the most memorable of all was Bluebeard. I read my book of fairy tales over and over, but only got the courage to dip into Bluebeard one in every four times or so.

The images stayed with me—dead women locked into a tiny room, blood on a key, being alone in an isolated house with a murderous husband. Perhaps the strength of those impressions explains why it's my favorite fairy tale as an adult.

A lot of myths and fairy tales just don't satisfy. When you really think about them, they make no sense.

For example, why doesn't Cinderella get any help from her father when her stepmother and stepsisters are cruel to her? Why are the Greek goddesses so petty that they fall for Eris's golden apple trick (bickering over which of them should receive the apple addressed "to the prettiest one," allowing the Trojan War to start in the process)?

I've found that many times thinking hard about the question and trying to answer it is a fruitful way to write a story.

I learned as a child that the Persephone myth is meant to explain the seasons, but as an adult I think it’s about sex, seduction, death, and losing your innocence--and how crazy it will drive your mother when you discover all of this. 

"The Little Death" isn't just a French expression--neuroscientists doing brain scans on women in the throes of orgasm found decreased blood flow to large portions of the brain. 

Intuitively, I buy this. A good orgasm makes me stupid until I get over it, and I often get a headache afterwards. This has not stopped me from seeking that moment of profound self-forgetting.

Here's another perspective on the sex/death connection: both orgasm and death cause the self to step aside and provide a glimpse into the natural state of being. Witnessing the moment provides a vicarious and compelling window into the same.

Today, I dug out a quote from Lama Surya Das that's always stuck in my head, describing the four moments a person can forget self and achieve enlightenment.

"Todestrieb" is the word Freud used to describe the "drive towards death, self-destruction, and the return to the inorganic" (in the words of Wikipedia's article on the death drive). Freud made controversial and contradictory statements about the relationship of Eros and Thanatos (sex and death) that have left people puzzling ever since.