Dying young and pretty in folklore and history
July 12, 2022 10:38 AM Subscribe
I'm writing about St. Therese of Lisieux (aka Little Flower). A lot of the veneration seems to come from her dying young, pretty and innocent--a deathbed photo of her serene face is especially revered. I'm sure many women have been fetishized for dying young, pretty, and innocent, and I'd like to know who comes to mind for you. Can be historical figures from any era, saints, women mentioned in myth/folklore. Trying to steer clear of more recent celebrity deaths.
Ophelia in Hamlet.
posted by heatherlogan at 10:50 AM on July 12, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by heatherlogan at 10:50 AM on July 12, 2022 [11 favorites]
For saints, there's the Virgin Martyrs: Agatha, Agnes, Cecilia, Catherine and Lucy. Also, maybe St Bernadette.
In mythology, Juliet of Romeo and Juliet fame.
In children's literature, there's as well as Beth March, maybe Ruby Gillis counts. It was a really common trope in Victorian literature but offhand i can only think of Helen Burns in Jane Eyre.
posted by plonkee at 10:53 AM on July 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
In mythology, Juliet of Romeo and Juliet fame.
In children's literature, there's as well as Beth March, maybe Ruby Gillis counts. It was a really common trope in Victorian literature but offhand i can only think of Helen Burns in Jane Eyre.
posted by plonkee at 10:53 AM on July 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
Three women who died very young and unjustly, although I can't decide whether they completely fit your criteria: Lady Jane Grey, Joan of Arc and Anne Frank.
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 10:56 AM on July 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by ManyLeggedCreature at 10:56 AM on July 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
Saint Maria Goretti. An 11-year-old Italian girl who was stabbed while she was resisting sexual assault.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:58 AM on July 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:58 AM on July 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
She doesn't actually die, but Hero's faked death in Much Ado About Nothing inspires exactly that kind of reaction. She goes from being vilified to revered as an unjustly accused innocent.
posted by jedicus at 11:01 AM on July 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by jedicus at 11:01 AM on July 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
The Lady of Shallott
CW: sui
Evelyn McHale, who jumped from the Empire State Building in the 1947 and landed on a car, which made for a grimly iconic photo
L’Inconnue du Seine - an unknown young woman found drowned in the Seine River in the 1880s. Her serene expression was glorified with a plaster death mask, replicas of which became fashionable French home decor in the early 1900s, and her face was used as the model for modern CPR Annie dolls.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 11:04 AM on July 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
CW: sui
Evelyn McHale, who jumped from the Empire State Building in the 1947 and landed on a car, which made for a grimly iconic photo
L’Inconnue du Seine - an unknown young woman found drowned in the Seine River in the 1880s. Her serene expression was glorified with a plaster death mask, replicas of which became fashionable French home decor in the early 1900s, and her face was used as the model for modern CPR Annie dolls.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 11:04 AM on July 12, 2022 [7 favorites]
If you extend "death" to include "miraculously transformed into nonhuman entity to escape doom," Greek myth has a number of these, most notably, Daphne, who was turned into a laurel tree to escape Apollo's relentless pursuit.
The tragic heroine of The Wings of the Dove fits as well. In the movie adaptation, she is last seen dying of unspecified illness (plus broken heart) on a couch in a Venetian palazzo, in a fabulous white Fortuny-style gown I am absolutely fucking scandalized not to be able to find a good image of online, but here's a shot that gives you the idea.
posted by praemunire at 11:11 AM on July 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
The tragic heroine of The Wings of the Dove fits as well. In the movie adaptation, she is last seen dying of unspecified illness (plus broken heart) on a couch in a Venetian palazzo, in a fabulous white Fortuny-style gown I am absolutely fucking scandalized not to be able to find a good image of online, but here's a shot that gives you the idea.
posted by praemunire at 11:11 AM on July 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
Definitely saints Agnes and Agatha, but also Iphigenia and the daughter of Jepthah.
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:15 AM on July 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by fingersandtoes at 11:15 AM on July 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Another young Italian girl - Chiara Badano, a more contemporary example. She's not a saint yet, but she's on a fast track there.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:17 AM on July 12, 2022
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:17 AM on July 12, 2022
The ideal/idolised women in Dickens's novels, including Kate Nickleby and Little Nell, are based on his sister-in-law Mary Hogarth, who died aged 17 when Dickens was starting his career. He regarded her as a paragon, an angel of purity and goodness.
posted by MinPin at 11:31 AM on July 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by MinPin at 11:31 AM on July 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
Charles Dickens' "Little Nell", from The Old Curiosity Shop! Young, virginal, wholesome, dies a very slow and extremely sentimental death.
posted by theatro at 11:32 AM on July 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by theatro at 11:32 AM on July 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Some possible Russian examples, depending on how you define innocence:
Princess Anastasia (though she may be more famous for the urban legend about her not dying)
Zoia Kosmodem'anskaia
(literary) Poor Liza
Also, Edgar Allan Poe's wife Virginia, possible inspiration for "Annabel Lee."
posted by derrinyet at 11:39 AM on July 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
Princess Anastasia (though she may be more famous for the urban legend about her not dying)
Zoia Kosmodem'anskaia
(literary) Poor Liza
Also, Edgar Allan Poe's wife Virginia, possible inspiration for "Annabel Lee."
posted by derrinyet at 11:39 AM on July 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
Annabel Lee, of the titular poem by Edgar Allan Poe, presumably inspired by the early death of his wife, Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe. Poe built a lot of his poetics on this, stating "“The death of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world.”
posted by sohalt at 11:52 AM on July 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by sohalt at 11:52 AM on July 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
Applicable TV Tropes: Victorian Novel Disease, Delicate And Sickly, Virgin Power, Too Good for This Sinful Earth
posted by zamboni at 11:54 AM on July 12, 2022
posted by zamboni at 11:54 AM on July 12, 2022
theatro: Charles Dickens' "Little Nell",
In that case: H.C. Andersen's lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne (the little girl with the matchsticks) would qualify too.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:55 AM on July 12, 2022
In that case: H.C. Andersen's lille Pige med Svovlstikkerne (the little girl with the matchsticks) would qualify too.
posted by Stoneshop at 11:55 AM on July 12, 2022
Empress Elisabeth, better known as Sisi.
Sisi is an interesting case. She was actually over 60 when she was assassinated. She still managed to achieve this effect by rigorously withdrawing from the public eye once her age started to show. She basically killed of her public persona before her time to die in beauty after all, clearly very conscious of a widespread expectation that women best disappear once their youth starts to fade.
There's a recent film about this, Corsage by Marie Kreutzer with Vicky Krieps, which I can only recommend.
posted by sohalt at 12:02 PM on July 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
Sisi is an interesting case. She was actually over 60 when she was assassinated. She still managed to achieve this effect by rigorously withdrawing from the public eye once her age started to show. She basically killed of her public persona before her time to die in beauty after all, clearly very conscious of a widespread expectation that women best disappear once their youth starts to fade.
There's a recent film about this, Corsage by Marie Kreutzer with Vicky Krieps, which I can only recommend.
posted by sohalt at 12:02 PM on July 12, 2022 [5 favorites]
For an example that's waaaaaaay over on the incredibly manipulative and problematic end, Little Eva from Uncle Tom's Cabin.
posted by humbug at 12:06 PM on July 12, 2022
posted by humbug at 12:06 PM on July 12, 2022
So as not to abuse the edit function... I suspect the TVTropes page for Too Good For This Sinful Earth would have plenty of grist for this mill.
posted by humbug at 12:07 PM on July 12, 2022
posted by humbug at 12:07 PM on July 12, 2022
Came here to say Poe! The Raven is also about this, and here is more about the essay from which that quote comes.
posted by earth by april at 12:27 PM on July 12, 2022
posted by earth by april at 12:27 PM on July 12, 2022
Hans Christian Andersen also springs to mind: The Little Mermaid, The Little Match Girl.
posted by earth by april at 12:32 PM on July 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by earth by april at 12:32 PM on July 12, 2022 [3 favorites]
Best answer: You will find SO many examples, because these are some of the longest running motifs in European art and literature!
The connection between nubile young women and death stretches back to the envisioning of unmarried girls who died before getting married in Ancient Greece as 'brides of Hades': H.J. Rose (1925); Richard Seaford (1987); Ken Dowden (2013). cf. the famous Phrasikleia korē; the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
You may wish to read about the "Death and the Maiden" motif in art in the Renaissance; it develops out of imagery from the Danse Macabre. Wiki only talks about a few instantiations, but it continues on with renewed vigor in the Romantic and Victorian periods (cf. the many pre-Raphaelite portrayals of figures like Ophelia and the Lady of Shallott, as mentioned above).
In the modern era, the vampire figure often clearly represents this eroticization of death/connection between a 'virginal' woman and death.
posted by lysimache at 12:40 PM on July 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
The connection between nubile young women and death stretches back to the envisioning of unmarried girls who died before getting married in Ancient Greece as 'brides of Hades': H.J. Rose (1925); Richard Seaford (1987); Ken Dowden (2013). cf. the famous Phrasikleia korē; the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.
You may wish to read about the "Death and the Maiden" motif in art in the Renaissance; it develops out of imagery from the Danse Macabre. Wiki only talks about a few instantiations, but it continues on with renewed vigor in the Romantic and Victorian periods (cf. the many pre-Raphaelite portrayals of figures like Ophelia and the Lady of Shallott, as mentioned above).
In the modern era, the vampire figure often clearly represents this eroticization of death/connection between a 'virginal' woman and death.
posted by lysimache at 12:40 PM on July 12, 2022 [4 favorites]
Ok, this is maybe a little backwards from what you're asking, but hear me out. The legend of St. Wilgefortis (aka St. Uncumber, aka Santa Librada, aka several other names) is the story of a beautiful Christian princess who was to be married off to a non-Christian king. She, however, had taken a vow of virginity and to prevent the marriage, prayed to be rendered so repulsive that he would leave her alone. God heard her prayer and she promptly sprouted a thick beard. Her dad got mad and had her crucified. So, she dies young but not beautiful (by conventional standards), but the beauty is understood to be there, under the beard, and it plays an important role in her story. She never existed, of course, but that's not the point.
posted by pleasant_confusion at 2:47 PM on July 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by pleasant_confusion at 2:47 PM on July 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
I immediately thought of Wendla in the musical Spring Awakening and the song "Those You've Known." It's based on a 19th century German play, which may also fit.
posted by Threeve at 2:53 PM on July 12, 2022
posted by Threeve at 2:53 PM on July 12, 2022
Response by poster: I think I can also use movie plots for this. Spoilers:
I know there are a million examples, but I'm starting with 3.
Spoilers
Sweet November
Love Story
Moulin Rouge
posted by mermaidcafe at 3:54 PM on July 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
I know there are a million examples, but I'm starting with 3.
Spoilers
Sweet November
Love Story
Moulin Rouge
posted by mermaidcafe at 3:54 PM on July 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
Would Shelby from Steel Magnolias work?
posted by corey flood at 4:18 PM on July 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by corey flood at 4:18 PM on July 12, 2022 [1 favorite]
the early death of Princess Amelia was said to have driven her father the king mad.
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:59 PM on July 12, 2022
posted by fingersandtoes at 4:59 PM on July 12, 2022
Snow White, although I suppose she wasn’t technically dead.
posted by corey flood at 9:58 PM on July 12, 2022
posted by corey flood at 9:58 PM on July 12, 2022
One or two of the Remedioses in One Hundred Years of Solitude fit the bill I think
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 12:04 AM on July 13, 2022
posted by womb of things to be and tomb of things that were at 12:04 AM on July 13, 2022
There's the Southern folk song "Lass from the Low Country", about a girl who either wastes away because a duke doesn't notice her OR dies in childbirth because the Duke was a damn cad. Depends on your reading, I guess. It's one of the traditional Appalachian ballads collected (or revised) by John Jacob Niles.
posted by Snarl Furillo at 4:31 PM on July 13, 2022
posted by Snarl Furillo at 4:31 PM on July 13, 2022
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posted by cakelite at 10:44 AM on July 12, 2022 [10 favorites]