Symbolic Immortality and Transcendental Heroism

This book conducts a terror management theory analysis of four selected poems by Sylvia Plath and Van Gogh’s painting “The Starry Night”. Terror Management Theory presents the ways human beings expound, apprehend, and grasp the different means of defying death such as symbolic and literal immortality, transcendental heroism, cultural worldviews, and self- esteem. Furthermore, the psychological strategies of defense mechanisms that were proposed by the psychologist Sigmund Freud will be explored to investigate other psychological shields developed by the individual to face and overcome the fear and threat of death. In this sense, this comparative interdisciplinary study is meant to examine these dissimilar forms of media narrative to highlight the shared experiences of the two artists who experienced different forms of death whether psychologically or physically. This book provides a background of the emergence and development of terror management theory and employs its main concepts. It also investigates the lives of the two artists and the impact of the death anxiety thoughts on their works.