Hannah Kent's Burial Rites

Amidst the journey of the last woman executed in Iceland is the ‘nature [that] is watchful of all of us.’ Kent parallels the protagonist Agnes’ story alongside the force of the harsh Icelandic climate and country that ‘is as awake as you and I’ and often determines key events in the novel. The ominous foreshadowing of death represented in elements of the landscape highlights how the country is an essential aspect of the novel, often adding to the dramatic effect. Agnes’ road to spiritual redemption, both religion based and personal, is greatly influenced by the natural occurrences of the country. Ultimately, the harsh Icelandic conditions impact the lives

The text Burial Rites written by Hannah Kent focuses on the true story of the last woman to be executed in Iceland, her punishment for playing part in the murder of two men. She is sent to wait out her days on the farm of a district officer, Jón Jónsson with his two daughters and wife. Naturally, the family are horrified to have a convicted murderer in their midst. Borne from this, the family refuse to talk to her. A young man, Toti is appointed as her spiritual guardian in the last days of her life, throughout the text, he attempts to redeem her soul by asking her to recount her life.

Burial rites written by Hannah Kent is a deeply moving account of a convicted women's last days as she struggles to maintain her equilibrium whilst confronting her death. Telling stories is one way of doing this, as Agnes preserves in these memories her claim to be remembered. God has not been kind to Agnes, whose life has been blighted by fate, and yet she is blessed with a fierce intelligence and a will to survive. Kent's historical novel explores how we deal with death in a variety of forms, but it also illustrates how lives are lived in this harsh environment. There is a rich texture is life in this setting, with rites, relationships and rules. Death in this novel is less simple than just the end of life. Some lives are ended brutally and deliberately, and other are simply overwhelmed by the harsh conditions. While the main focus of Burial rites is the impact of deliberate death, we also see how this society faces less dramatic deaths in this environment. Kent also displays how life is lived in this part of Iceland around 1830, and how deliberate death affects the way people lived. While death is an obvious focus of Burial Rites, this novel has meaningful things to say about

Burial Rites by Hannah Kent is a story of a woman, Agnes Magnusdottir, fighting against society’s opinion of her as she struggles to redeem herself. Agnes is portrayed as a woman who is struggling against the patriarchal system that seems to imprison her. The audience is positioned to feel sympathy for Agnes throughout the novel as she explains her harsh childhood through her conversations with Toti. We are also positioned to feel sympathy for her as Kent describes the way that she is treated by the men in her life, particularly Blondal and Natan. By the end of the novel the audience is positioned to feel angered by how Agnes is forced to struggle through to her final breaths with very little sympathy shown to her by the dominant characters

He wants to “make an example” of Agnes and Fredrik so that others are aware of his authority and the control he has over the community. Like Blondal, Poet-Rosa also is empowered by her use of words. Rosa’s poetry is well-known and highly spoken of by others in the community. Natan admiration of her poems and her ability to invent “her own language to what everyone else could only feel”, Natan admiration of Rosa’s poetic talent gives her power over Natan, as she is able to leave their child in his care without having to stay and Natan does not object. In addition, Agnes’ recount of the events of her past to Toti and Margret allows them to develop sympathy and compassion for her. Nearing the execution, Margret is calling Agnes "my child" and gathers new clothes for Agnes to wear to her death. On the day of the execution Toti is beside Agnes, comforting her and assuring

Emily Dickinson is one of the most important American poets of the 1800s. Dickinson, who was known to be quite the recluse, lived and died in the town of Amherst, Massachusetts, spending the majority of her days alone in her room writing poetry. What few friends she did have would testify that Dickinson was a rather introverted and melancholy person, which shows in a number of her poems where regular themes include death and mortality. One such poem that exemplifies her “dark side” is, “Because I Could Not Stop for Death”. In this piece, Dickinson tells the story of a soul’s transition into the afterlife showing that time and death have outright power over our lives and can make what was once significant become meaningless.

Set in the harsh patriarchal society of 1829 Iceland, Hannah Kent’s Burial Rites uses historical fiction to reimagine the life and death of Agnes Magnusdottir; a woman sentenced to death for her involvement in the murder of two men. The role of women in this oppressive society is thoroughly explored, establishing a social commentary which juxtaposes the double standards, sexual abuse and primitive gender roles of 19th century Iceland to the independence, equality and lifestyle choices for women in the 21st century.

Edna’s suicide was victory of self-expression. Edna undergoes a gradual awakening process in which portrays not to only her newly established independence from the constraints of her husband, but also her ability to go against the social norms of society in order to individually express herself. Her suicide encompases the question and critique of living life through the perspective of society such as being responsible for taking care of the kids, cleaning the house, and entertaining any guests that the husband may have over anytime. In the first couple of capters, the novel is quick to emphasize the gerneralized roles kthat are placed onto females, making it apparent that fe,ales are expected to successfully fulfil these roles. For example, Leonce enters home after being out and stated one of the kids had a fever. Edna was certain the child had no fever but Leonce belittles her capability as a mother for indifference with him. “If it was not a mother’s place to look after the children, whose on earth was it?” (27capac).

Though set in entirely dissimilar countries at different points in history, Margaret Atwood’s ‘Alias Grace’ and Hannah Kent’s ‘Burial Rites’ possess significant comparisons. Both for instance, are fictionalized historical novels following the tribulations of a female protagonist convicted of murder and both have been widely acclaimed for their incredible literary style which merges classic poetry, epigraphs, folklore and historical articles with fiction. The most striking parallel between each novel that can be drawn, however, is the way in which authors masterfully craft the stories of untrustworthy, cunning and deceptive criminals to elicit sympathy from their audiences. Readers of the novel and secondary characters alike are gradually pulled into sympathising with ambiguous and untrustworthy female leads, Grace Marks (Alias Grace) and Agnes Magnusdottir (Burial Rites). Despite the heavy suspicions of others and a lack of evidence to support their claims of innocence, these characters present artfully manipulated features of their defence stories to provoke empathy, sympathy and trust from those within the novel, and those reading it.

She is moved by music. During that summer Edna sketches to find an artistic side to herself. She needs an outlet to express who she is. Edna feels that art is important and adds meaning to her life. After the summer is over and they are back to the city and Edna is a changed woman. She makes many steps towards independence. She stops holding "Tuesday socials", she sends her children to live in the country with their grandparents, she refuses to travel abroad with her husband, she moves out of the Lebrun house on Esplanade Street, and to earn money, she starts selling her sketches and betting the horses. She also starts a relationship with another man Alcee Arobin. He meant nothing to her emotionally but she used him for sexual pleasure. Edna evolved above her peers she did not believe that sexuality and motherhood had to be linked. The last step of her "awakening" is the realization that she can not fulfill her life in a society that will not allow her to be a person and a mother. Edna commits suicide in the ocean at Grand Isle.

The Prioress punishes Agnes in extremely sadistic ways which Lewis depicts graphically. She orders Agnes to be “chained down in one of these secret dungeons, shut out from the world and light for ever, with no comfort but religion, no society but repentance, thus [she] must groan away the remainder of [her] days” (313). By confining Agnes to an underground dungeon and severing all her ties with society, the Prioress essentially entombs Agnes in a living grave filled with “skulls, shoulder-blades, thigh-bones and other leavings of Mortality” (310). The Prioress unleashes the utmost cruelty on Agnes which are unnecessarily harsh. This is seen by how the Prioress insists upon severe punishment of Agnes even as the other nuns try to persuade her to “overlook this first transgression” given that “[Agnes] seems sensible of her fault; The excess of her grief proves her penitence” (177).

Funeral Rites’ tri-partite structure is reminiscent of the structure of North. North is separated into three sections, with each representing Heaney’s altering attitudes towards death. The first section contains two poems in dedication - clearly personal to Heaney. By introducing North with two personal poems, Heaney situates the reader in a ‘world of warmth, solidarity and almost

Readers see Agnés struggle between her gut and her brain. Her gut feeling is that she wants to marry Horace because she has fallen in love with how he treats her like an actual person. On the other hand, her brain is telling her to marry

He never returned home so she thought that he was dead. She says that she was young and not necessarily ready to marry Roger when she did. She loved him but she wasn't in love with him. She did care about Roger because he asked her not to tell anyone that he was her husband and she didn't tell anyone. She respected what he wanted done and if she didn't care about him at all then she would have told everyone that he was her husband. She was in love with Arthur but could never confess that to anyone else besides him because she didn't want anything to go wrong for Arthur. Arthur was supposed to set a good example about how to deal with life and not to commit sins because he was the minister of the church in their city. Little did everyone know that he was the adulterous. No one ever suspected him of it because no know would've thought that a minister would do

The second letter of Clare to Agnes was an another material that went to empower her in the faith to Love God. A careful study of both letters made me understand that Agnes replaced the Lord Jesus Christ as a spiritual husband and she decided not to look back