[Depiction of a human resisting death] · Centre for Early Modern Visual Culture

Title: [Depiction of a human resisting death]
Subject: Immortality; Immortality in literature; Death and burial; fictional works; imaginary places; Fictitious characters; imaginary creatures
Period: 1800-1850;
Description: After Gulliver spoke about the wonders of immortality, a diplomat from Luggnag corrected him. The diplomat explained that while elsewhere in the world most people did not want to die, saying that even with one foot in the grave they would try and hang onto life. This is the image shown here. A skeleton, representing death, tries to pull a man into his grave, while the man pulls away, holding onto the cliff, representing life. The diplomat from Luggnagg explained that on the island, most people did not have this same resistance to death because they could see people who were immortal. These immortals would not die, but would continue to age, thus their quality of life would continue to deteriorate forever. The same image appears in the 1843 Krabbe edition.
Image Creator: Grandville (Illustrator)
Type: StillImage; Book Illustrations
Identifier: mta:21129
Language: ger
Source Name: Gulliver's Reisen in unbekannte Länder
Parent Collection: 1839 Stuttgart Grandville vol. 2
Image: mta_21129_OBJ.png