Confronting the dark: using practice-led research to write about death

Abstract

In this article, I describe how my personal experience of death prompted the writing of a novel and how the practice of writing about death led me to develop a critical inquiry into Continental philosophy and other theories of death. I discuss philosophical approaches to living authentically in the face of death and the human tendency to search for meaning. I undertake a close reading of Helen Garner’s The Spare Room (2008) in light of these issues and the changing attitudes to death since modernism, particularly the need for open communication about death and the importance for the dying in feeling that their life has significance for other people.