The Grim Reaper

Yes.
I thought our friend the reaper would be terribly appropriate for my very first post, since his is in my background; he is literally my reaper, ha. I drew him in my art class.

However, we're not here to talk about my art skills (or the lack thereof), we are, in fact, here to discuss who this robed, scythe-wielding skeleton is.

His, or her, many names include: Angel of Death, Odin (one of my favorite Norse gods), Thanatos, Yamraj, Ankou, Śmierć, Pesta, Malak al-Mawat (this one just sounds cool, doesn't it?), Enma Daiou... The list goes on.


We can thank the Middle Ages for the male, black robe-wearing, scythe-carrying walking skeleton image that's popular today. However, imagine looking into the sky one day and instead of seeing Santa Claus shooting through the sky with his reindeer, you see Odin and his long white beard ripping amongst the stars on his mighty eight-legged horse, Slepnier. Or, perhaps you died in battle, and your soul awoke just in time to find one of Odin's beautiful (and busty) Valkyries (meaning "chooser of the slain") to take you to Valhalla, the glorious "Hall of the Slain." Grim Reaper doesn't sound too scary then, does it? Odin, the ruler of Asgard and father of Thor, can be thought of as a reaper in a way. Another bit of information, one of his other many names were "Grimnir," which means "hooded." And yes, the original Santa Claus was also a Grim Reaper - is that awesome or is that awesome? Odin as Santa today would probably look like this:

In any case, imagine the personification of Death as a bearded, winged man, or a young boy.  Now you're in Hellenic Greece, where death was viewed as inevitable and therefore not purely evil. Thanatos was seen as a bearded man or a young boy (in these beliefs, Death was male, Life was female). His job was to handover the souls of the dead to Charon, who then carried the souls on a ferry to Acheron, the land that separates the land of the living and the land of the dead. If the souls did not the pay the poor ferryman upon arrival, they were abandoned - left by the riverside for one hundred years (ouch, harsh).

But, I think Thanatos is boring. His sisters, however, are known as the Keres, the spirits of violent death: battle, disease, accident, and murder. Sporting fangs, talons, and bloody garments, they were viewed as pure evil, often displayed feeding on the blood of the dead after their soul reached Hades.


The Celtic version of the reaper was Ankou, or Arawn, also known as the "graveyard watcher." He was supposedly the last person to die in a community, even though he's always male. He is all-seeing, and tall and haggard with a wide hat and long white hair... or simply a skeleton with a revolving head. You could be comfy-cozy in your cabin, snoozing soundly when you hear the creaking of Ankou's axle just outside your window, his wagon piled high with corpses. Lovely way to go, isn't it? Also, you can't escape Ankou; when he stops at your place, it means instant death for those inside.

I could go on and on into India (Yamaraj), East Asia (Yanluo, Enma Diaou, Great King Yomna), Christianity (Four Horsemen), Islam (Azrael, or Malak al-Mawt)... And perhaps one day I will, but we should probably get on to the reaper figure in literature. This brings me to the most obvious example: The Raven.

The protagonist of Poe's The Raven depressed over his lost love, Lenore. And, just like rubbing salt in the wounds, here comes the Raven as a messenger of death, constantly reminding him that Lenore is, indeed, dead, dead, dead.

Another example would be the suit of armor in The Castle of Otranto, often referred to as the first Gothic story. In it, a  falling helmet from a giant suit of armor smashed Conrad, the only son of Manfred (who is the antagonist), on Conrad's wedding day. "...[H]e beheld his child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet, a hundred times more large than any casque ever made for human being." It's not really considered a reaper, but it did come with some sort of message ("You're a terrible person, and I shall take your only son!)... and brought death right with it. This is a stretch, but one of the characters (I won't say who, in case you might want to read it sometime), does end up dying at the end.


You know, it was right hard trying to think of examples for this!


Could Dracula himself be considered a reaper? He hovered over poor Lucy every night while she hung on to life by a thread. Each night, he inched her closer and closer to death. Although Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, Quincy, and Arthur tried their hardest to protect her and keep her alive, in the end, Dracula - Death - was inescapable. 


What about Frankenstein's monster? He was basically walking Death, pieced together by the parts of various cadavers. He did his share of killing as well, haunting his creator in a way, much like reaper-figures do. 

(1974 comedy - a great movie, really - Young Frankenstein)


What do you think? Maybe some of you can come up with more examples. 


Until next blog~


Jasmine