Personifications of Death

As a personification, death is portrayed as a person with human characteristics, in contrast to a functional description of death, such as “the end of life of an organism.” The anthropomorphic features of death are represented in the physical appearance of death (e.g., a human skeleton) and the activities death is imagined performing (e.g., playing an instrument). In addition, death can be given a gender, clothing, personality, and voice. Personifications of death are representations of how humans imagine death. By personifying death, we reveal how we experience death, especially when death is given a particular character. In stories in which death is presented as a person, humans trick or play with death; this suggests that people want to be in control of their own deaths. [Page 805]Personifications of death have been depicted in mythology, art, literature, and popular culture since 800 B.C.E. This entry overviews four themes to explicate the richness of the personification of death: (1) images of death in mythology and religion, (2) the gender of death, (3) modern images and motion pictures, and (4) the psychology of personifications of death.

Images of Death in Mythology and Religion

In Greek mythology death is represented by Thanatos, the god of death. Although Thanatos is a god, like other Greek gods, he has human attributes. He has a human body and is seen as the brother of Hypnos, the god of sleep. A classical image of Thanatos is a barely dressed man with wings who ends people's lives by a gentle touch. In this ancient representation, death is not cruel or frightening, but rather, a kind, inevitable visitor. The anthropomorphism in the illustrations of Thanatos is most visible in a painting by German artist Johannes Heinrich Tischbein, which shows the mother of death, Nyx (the goddess of the night), and her two little children, Thanatos and his brother Hypnos. In the image, the mother Nyx gently places her arms around her two sons.

In Hinduism, the god of death is personified in a human-like body, with a human face or a mask, in the form of Yama. A central attribute of this representation is a bull on which Yama is sitting or standing. The god of death holds a rope or a mace and pulls out the souls of those about to die. The gentleness in the image of Thanatos is not to be found in this personification. Moreover Yama brings justice to the world. A popular myth tells that Yama used to be a human who, just before reaching Enlightenment and after 50 years of meditation, was killed by two robbers.

Many images from the Middle Ages of la danse macabre (dance of death) are often combined with parts of texts from the Bible. The dance of death is a metaphor for the last struggle with death. In many images of la danse macabre, death is shown as a dancer, or more precisely, a dancing skeleton, sometimes wearing a robe or piece of cloth. Death also plays different instruments in different images, among others a violin, harp, or drum. In these images, death is touching people or pulling their clothes while showing his teeth, which gives the impression that death is laughing at his guests.

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