Analysis Of The Denial Of Death By Ernest Becker

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The book The Denial of Death was written by Ernest Becker and was published in 1973. According to Ernest Becker, “The main thesis of this book is that it explains: the idea of death, the fear of death that haunts humans like nothing else; the mainspring of human activity designed to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man” (“Becker” ix). The author of this book describes and quotes many other psychological thinkers views on the different kinds of fear and what contributes to the fear of death in man. The author explores several topics like self-worth, heroism, fear, anxiety, depression and many other issues throughout this book. The author starts the book by talking about heroism …show more content…

I agree with this as I have personal experience with this situation. When things in life get hard and stressed out I try to get out of it by entertaining myself by watching a funny program on television, so that I will forget the problem. Yet, this peace is short-lived as one day we will have to face the problem. He goes on to say that man has two types of fear the fear of life and the fear of death. I agree with this statement. Even when humans are living on earth they are surrounded by fear of every kind of natural calamities, accidents, disease outbreaks, responsibilities, and finally the fear of death. This is true for people who worry all the time about things. A person who is in Texas could sit worrying and fearing about a disease outbreak in China. However, the truth is that most of the time the things we fear never actually come true. He says an interesting fact said by Perls about the four layers of the neurotic structure. “The first two layers are the getting along in society layer, the third layer is our inner feeling of emptiness and being lost, and the fourth layer is the fear of death” (57). I also liked the statement said by Traherne that “the totality of the human condition is the thing that is so hard for a man to recapture. He wants his world safe for delight, wants to blame others for his fate” (65), which is absolutely true. Every human being wants happiness and safety in the world. Humans also have the tendency to put the blame on others for their own actions. I also like and agree with the statement Kirkegaard said that people get afraid when things are not arranged in the same order they know it to be. He gives the perfect example of a math problem. “When it is changed in any form than it was taught to us we perceive it as a new problem altogether and get frightened” (71). I also like his idea about how to encourage a child to grow up on

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