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The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford · Theme

Death and Mortality

How The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford develops Death and Mortality.

A recurring preoccupation with death, the terror of dying, and the struggle to find meaning or comfort in the face of mortality, especially when traditional religious assurances about an afterlife have been lost.

Where it surfaces

  • Epigraph

    The entire poem is a meditation on the speaker's imminent death and his physical decay.

  • III: Water Lane

    Rutherford prays for death during his depression and later fears dying 'the most contemptible of all deaths' from alcoholism.

  • VI: Ellen and Mary

    Rutherford reflects on the inevitability of death and the contradictions of life, seeing good and evil as inseparable.

  • Oxford Street

    Miss Mardon's death and Rutherford's subsequent broken-heartedness, as well as reflections on death as a regenerator, are central.