# Death — Poetry character guide

> Death in Poetry by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Azrael—O Prince of Death, Said Death

**First appearance:** 0000-poetry

## Snapshot

The Prince of Death, addressed as Azrael, who receives the newly dead into an eternity of tedious, bureaucratic afterlife.

## Who they are

Death presides over the grim machinery of the grave, and in Bierce's verse he is less a reaper than a jailer and a guide through the monotonous corridors of the hereafter. The speaker of 'Hell' sinks for twenty centuries before a Voice assigns him a permanent cell, and the poem's desolate comedy depends on Death's indifferent, almost clerical authority. He matters because he sets the book's tone: mortality is not tragic here but absurd, and the afterlife is a place of endless, petty confinement.

## In the story

### [Subterranean Phantasies](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/subterranean-phantasies)

Referenced as the figure whose approach causes judges to fall and soil their ermine.

### [Two Rogues](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/two-rogues)

Approaches the sentry but is denied passage and rebuked for using low and abhorrent methods of killing.

### [A Guest](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/a-guest)

Addressed directly by the narrator as a guest; offered wine but requests blood instead.

### [The Day of Wrath](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/the-day-of-wrath)

Personified Death, quaking at the trumpet call that wakes the dead.

### [Azrael](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/azrael)

Appears as a luminous peasant driving a wain, then reveals himself as the Angel of Death (Azrael) who claims the narrator as his victim.

### [Finis Aeternitatis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/finis-aeternitatis)

Azrael, the Prince of Death, who announces the death of all beings and the end of Eternity.

### [One of the Redeemed](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/one-of-the-redeemed)

Death is mentioned as having felled Renan's body.

### [A Caller](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/a-caller)

Death visits a fat assassin in jail, engaging in a sardonic conversation about aging and public opinion.

### [XX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/xx)

Portrayed as the lone fisherman who lands Joseph Redding.

### [CXX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/cxx)

Death appears as a sentinel, challenging the narrator and offering him a role as a great soldier against life and the fear of death.

### [CXCVIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/cxcviii)

Death is the presence before whom the old man uncovers and bows.

### [CCXIX](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/ccxix)

Death responds, explaining its veiled face spares the narrator.

### [CCLIII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/ccliii)

Death throws dice with Life for a child, then remarks that the stake is already dead of age.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/characters/death
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/characters