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This week's question: What are the most memorable death scenes in literature?

When books delve into the dark matters of death, the results can be gut-wrenching, tear-inducing, puzzling, troubling or — when villains get their due — oddly satisfying. (Sayonara, Saruman.)

Some of the most memorable deaths in literature come from the stage. William Shakespeare has more than a few to his name: Romeo, Juliet, Julius Caesar. With plays, much of death is left to the imagination — and to the stage directions. Readers get only the doomed character's parting gestures or words. But that can be enough. ("Et tu, Brute?")

By the 19th century, drawn-out death bed scenes were en vogue. Charles Dickens never missed a chance for a character to waste away under the covers, with pale skin and a bittersweet speech. (Rest in peace, Little Nell.)

Louisa May Alcott's "Little Women" falls into this category as well. Sweet Beth March goes quietly after years of illness, leaving behind her loving sisters in a Kleenex-required scene by the fire.

Then came the 20th century. With antibiotics and modern medicine, wasting away was left behind for brutal scenes of violence and loss. Novels inspired by the world wars brought death scenes from the battlefield. 

And the violence didn't stay on the warfront. Innocence was lost — see Piggy's tragic end in "Lord of the Flies."

What literary deaths stick with you, long after the last page? The Thread's list is below.

Death on the page: Memorable literary death scenes

 Hamlet, Ophelia, Romeo, Juliet, Julius Caesar, Othello, Desdemona, Cordelia, Cleopatra and the whole cast of "Titus Andronicus."

 Leo Tolstoy was inspired by an actual death scene he saw in the paper: His neighbor's mistress threw herself under a train.

 Charlotte realizes Humbert Humbert's true nature too late. Her timing is never right, because next she steps in front of a car.

 Cormac McCarthy's book is positively dripping in blood, but for the death of his protagonist, he takes things off-screen and makes readers use their imagination.

 Dickens leaves the death beds behind for the guillotine in his French Revolution classic. High schoolers have been reading about this heroic death for decades.

 Jeffrey Eugenides takes his readers through the deaths of all five Lisbon daughters in 1970s Grosse Pointe, Mich., but Cecilia goes first.

 William Golding's story of young boys run amok will keep you up at night. Of course, when rescued, they turn back into normal boys — but that's too late for Piggy.

The Coonhounds in "Where the Red Fern Grows":

 Your library's copy of Wilson Rawls' coming-of-age story likely has more than one tear-stained page near the end. The death of an animal in a book, novelist Ron Rash pointed out, can be more affecting because beloved animals, unlike people, "have never done anything bad."

 E.B. White left parents with a lot of explaining to do when Charlotte didn't move in her web that morning. 

 Which literary death scenes have stayed in your memory? What made them so powerful?

Arts and Culture

The Thread® - Books and Literary News

Tracy Mumford

Author

What characters' unfortunate demises have you never forgotten? We build a list of the literary death scenes that still stick with us.

The Thread Question this week asks: What literary characters' deaths have you never forgotten?

'The End': The most memorable literary death scenes

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