Finding the Love for Those We don’t Know

By News Editor Cormac McCarthy

In 1841, Charles Dickens’ novel The Old Curiosity Shop was being published in the weekly serial Master Humphrey’s Clock. With each chapter being published every Saturday, and with Dickens’ readership at the height of its the popularity, the serial was considered a veritable hit.

Readers were particularly devoted to Nell Trent, the main character of the book. “Little Nell” was an almost angelic child of “not Quite fourteen” who represented all the good that got swept up in the dark Victorian times. In her journey to London, she gradually becomes weaker and dies in the final chapter.

The sheer furor surrounding Little Nell’s death was unprecedented. Never before had such an uproarious disappointment been felt by the killing off of such a beloved character. Readers were distraught, with hundreds sending Dickens letters begging him to reveal in the upcoming chapters that little Nell would live.

Such was the popularity of the serial across the pond in the United States, that many fans were found waiting in the docks for the news of Little Nell. To this day, the fictional grave is still a massively popular tourist site.

While to many, it might seem ludicrous for such a response to the death of a fictional character, it shows that element of the human condition that forms such attachments to the intangible. The relationships, albeit one-sided, to these figures, are what make up our personalities and they subsequently grow new life through us.

We’ve all experienced the shocking headline of the death of a well-known artist. I can remember the first time I ever felt that dawning realization, when I awoke to the news of Davd Bowie’s death. Bowie, who I obsessed over in my early years, had become this almost God-like figure to me, represented the highest form of artistry to my adolescent self. I can still remember the first time I heard his music and the moment it caught me.

It’s an odd thing to have a lingering sense of grief for a public figure, but in all reality its perhaps the most natural thing of all. We often live vicariously through these individuals living alongside their artistry and imagining ourselves as being so much more than a fan, but a follower.

When the news of Sinead O’Connor’s death was reported during the summer, the outpouring support and tributes to her life and work was almost unprecedented in Irish culture. It showed us all how someone’s art can mean more than its intrinsic worth, in that their life is above the rest of ours. She existed during a time when women in culture were subdued and expected to fall in line with the statis quo. Her outspoken personality and refusal to bend to social norms spoke to a certain yearning in culture both Irish and abroad.

When one of these individuals disappears from our lives it is no different to that of a loved one going. Their life now lives on in the retrospective and the future impact on the cultural zeitgeist becomes slowly diminished. Yet our affection for them lives on, despite such an absence. While we may never meet any of these individuals, we interact and consume their art both through the lens of life and death.

Only last week, there was another wave of grief and tributes paid to Matthew Perry, the actor best known for his role as the character Chandler on the TV show Friends. The show was very much inherent to a certain generation and the character defined a brand of humour that found its way into the vernacular.

While we may never meet them, it’s through these people that we allow ourselves to be vulnerable and to sit with our honest selves for just a moment or two. In the art we enjoy and cherish, it’s not the ones that challenge us constantly and nor is it ones that allow us to switch off. But rather, it is through the composite of both these traits, we attach ourselves to the minutiae in the behaviour, their idiosyncratic qualities, the rhythms of their speech.

Our relationship with such cultural staples can only be as great as what we give them. In the same manner as a loved one, when we give our utmost, it’s all the more dreadful when it’s taken away.