Vol 1 , March 2018

CROW’S EYE
MAGAZINE
Digital magazine about English culture and literature for EFL learners

Angie Mejía
Jahirton Mazo
Julio Núñez
Jheyson Balanta

The
representations
of death
Angie Mejía
Jahirton Mazo

Julio Núñez
Jheyson Balanta



Editorial























Arts has been for a long time the
big way human being's
most
Table of

expresion and it has used diferent

styles for example, the literature,

music, painting and movies to
contents


show us the feeling or the

mesage that the authors want to Editorial……………1

transmit us. In this magazine we

are going to talk about how the


Painting……… ….2
that is a big enigm in the
death,



Music…………… 3
life, has influenced the diferent
Literature…………5

forms

of art , how has been a
inspiration
for different authors Movies……………6

and how has had influence in the References………....7
language in a society or culture.
 -2-

Painting
characters have, this is something almost impossible
to achieve using abstract art, some paintings that
The inspiration in death reflect what is expressed is “the descent from the
By: Jheyson Balanta cross“ by Rogiervander Weyden .

“While I thought I was learning how to live, I have

been learning how to die” Leonardo da Vinci

Art has always been one of the most prized things for
a large number of families with great resources,
especially they were attracted by the paintings and
sculptures that were able to create some authors,
they sought to appreciate in these pictures emotions,
thoughts and infinities of things that the best artists
were able to imbue in their masterpieces, among
these is one of the most sinister themes and
unfortunately the most inevitable of all which is,
death, this tragic event with which we are going to
meet in some moment of life, this is the reason why
some people live their lives in the most miserable
way because of the fear of encountering death more
quickly than expected.
Something important for artists when it comes to
making a work of art that represents death is the
style in which they do it, that means, these paintings
are characterized by not using abstract art when it
comes to representing what they feel because they
are not compatible, they opt more for the use of a
more simplistic and realistic art in order that the
painting can demonstrate the pain of the characters
that embody the painting, the objective is that they
feel the sadness and the disgrace as if they were old
acquaintances through the expressions that the
Another quality of the paintings that seek to reflect
death is the use of black color, because this color is
usually related to death, with what is lifeless, it
means, a dead color the one that reflects the despair,
a color that fits in a great way to the final result the
author want to obtain.
As for the sculptures, the mentioned before is also
taken into account, but it is also means to serve as a
guide, a masterpiece that apart from its beauty
serves as a companion for the lost souls towards
their way to the beyond, to eternal rest, for example
the San Pedro cemetery museum located in Medellin
in which they seek to reflect the beauty of death by
avoiding the use of the word graves and referring to
these as galleries which are accompanied in their
surroundings by beautiful sculptures with the
symbolism of being companions of the souls towards
the beyond as is the sculpture of the three virgins
located in this cemetery.
-3-
The influence of death in the music
By: Angie Mejia
“You resting in peace, forever, I accepted you free. A
blessing to me, I see you dressed in all White. Smilin
'at me, happy, knowin' everything's all right”
Dance, Nas
Music
For a long time music has been means of
communication and socialization between people
of different places, also the music is a form to
announce the culture, the life, the death, the
different ways of being, rituals, bussiness, etc. In
this case, is necessary taking into account two
concepts: Music and death. We can say that
music (provide of greek “mousike” and means
“spirit’s education”) is an instrument of people’s
communication that they use like a way to
express the feelings, emotions, costumes or
simply an entertainment way, music is the art that
consists in organize different sounds and silences
creating melodies and songs that are pleasing to
the ear and the spirit according to the greeks.
On the other hand, the concept death has been a

riddle because is maybe impossible to describe it
but according to Freud the death is a discharge of
the subconscious when the body stops working
(Freud,1979) , I mean, the death is when the life

of a body and a consciousness reaches its end.

Now, when started the relation between music

and death? This relation started when the people

felt the need to vent your feelings, problems,
agreements and disagreements with this stage of
the life. Different genres of music have been

influenced by this concept, for example the rock
and metal have been the principals exponents of
this concept. Groups like Black Sabbath or Iron
Maiden owe their success to death or topics

related with rituals, Satanism, massacres, etc.
because these topics always will be controversy
in our society, religion or culture.

Also, in the music, the death has been used like a

form of expressing the author’s mourning using
the linguistic competences or linguistic tools like
literary figures, and passive voice that create
different forms to express it in the music. For
example, Eric Clapton wrote the song “Tears in
Heaven” about the loss and the pain that he felt
when his son died. In 2002, the rapper Nas sang
the song Dance dedicated to his mother that was
died in that year, the song said: “I miss you more
each second I breathe” and ““You will always live
through me” In this case, we can see the use of
the language, the death and the music to express
the different emotions and feelings that a person

can feel.
 -5-

Literature




“The fear of death follows from the fear of
life. A man who lives fully lives fully is
prepared to die at nay time” Mark Twain



The book by writer Connie Willis called
“Doomsday book” or "day of the final judgment"

contains distopic elements of humanity between
middle age and the future, specifically in the year
2045. Her main protagonist is Kirvin Engle that
travel through time and was trapped in the middle

ages, therefore, she is witness to the misfortunes
and diseases caused by the Black Death. This
woman is considered a "sent from heaven" for

sick people. The image of death in this work is
devastation, destruction and away from the grace
of God.



It is tale written by Edgar Allan Poe, it narrates the
story about a plague called the “the red death”.

This story adapt aspects that happened during the

famous “black dead” such as: misfortune, fatality
and uncertainty. Moreover this text expresses
some elements of gothic art in the XII century

through architecture, scenarios, characters and
the shape the death represented as a masked
spectre covered of blood and majestic dressed.



 -6-

T


Movies


The representation of death The film shows how people are terrified about dying
throughout cinema and religion affairs like the doubt about god existence
By: Julio Núñez while evilness is constantly appearing.

The conception of “death” have always influenced

every culture in the world throughout history, due to
this fact people have tried to express it and also to
express the feelings it causes. The cinema is one of
the main arts that have represented it all over the
time (usually doing personification).

There are a lot of ways to die that have been shown in

the cinema, such as: suicide, homicide, dead penalty
and euthanasia, among others. Usually this kind of
movie are of horror (to scare) or comedy (as a
parody).

The seventh seal (1958) – Ingmar

Bergman’s

This story is developed in the middle age during the

Black Death, but besides the plague, the dead is
personified by a person that claims for people’s life.
The main issue of the movie is when the death plays a
chess game with a knight that is looking for

something that gives sense to his life, while people

tries to deal with the shock that the plague has
caused.
 -7-

reviewers sees the premonition as a god gift to fight

evilness.
Final Destination (2000) – James Wong





















This is one of the most famous movies in which death
engages the main role. In this film death is presented

as a supernatural force. During a flight a teenager
had a premonition where the plane suffers a fatal
accident, due to this fact some people terrified
decided to get down and some other were removed
because of a discussion. Then, the premonition
became a reality. After that, death start to pursue
each victim left to kill it through a mysterious way in
a specific sequence that the main character will have
to discover.

This movie shows how unpredictable death could be

and it also evidences that it is an issue each that
person will suffer at any time even if people tries to
avoid it because of the horror they feel to it. Some
 VII

About magazine







editors








Angie Milena Mejía Palacio
angie.mejiap@upb.edu.co






Jahirton Mazo Jiménez

jahirtonjohan.mazo@upb.edu.co







Julio César Núñez
julio.nunez@upb.edu.co








Yheyson Balanta


jbalantaberrio@gmail.com
































“I could not love except

where Death was

mingling his with

Beauty´s breath”



Edgar Allan Poe