The Death Of Marat In My Year of Rest and Relaxation

In my first blog post I failed to mention some very important things such as how our narrator had worked at an art gallery and is a Columbia Graduate who majored in Art History and ultimately her constant critique of every artwork that has come across her path. She trash talks these artworks and the artist behind them, it’s almost as though she finds anything perceived to be art as unconventional, more precisely the more modern artworks in today’s society that would be deemed abstract and equally as brilliant. She hates loud, vibrant colors that practically explode off the canvases and the stories behind them, more specifically she hates the reasons and inspirations behind the paintings and the messages the artist is trying to convey. She calls it all a load of bull and seems bored out of her mind, yet for someone who seemingly hates almost every artwork she is surrounded by, she has a favorite painting.

“I was permitted to take my seat. Out the window of the classroom, flat, wide yellow leaves fell from a single tree onto gray concrete. I dropped the class, had to explain to my advisor that I wanted to focus more on Neoclassicism, and switched to “Jacques-Louis David: Art, Virtue, and revolution.” The Death of Marat was one of my favorite paintings. A man stabbed to death in his bathtub.” (Moshfegh 190)

The Death of Marat, which I immediately recognized due to AP Euro (thanks JT) is painted by Jacques-Louis David depicting the newly murdered French revolutionary leader Jean-Paul Marat. The painting is essentially a man lying in the bathtub dead, with a stab wound in his chest and gripping a document he was writing. You see Marat had this really weird skin condition that made him spend too much time in the bathtub, so he would often place this wooden board across his tub and sit there for hours just writing and working, because if you’re stuck in a tub for a while you might as well make the best of it, right?  Then one day, Charlotte Corday came along. Corday belonged to a minor aristocractic family who were estentially nobility and if you don’t know the French Revolution, just know it wasn’t too friendly to the Nobility or monarchy, because of this Corday and her family felt threantedned by this revolution and the potential it had, so naturally instead of fleeing the country she decides to murder one of its leaders, as if that won’t set off a terrible chain of events in retaliation. Corday comes into Marat’s room promising information on another revolution that was taking place at the same time in Caen and when she comes in, sees him in the tub, she takes advantage of the opportunity and stabs him to death. 

To this day The Death of Marat is considered the first Modernist Painting in the world and is revered by many artists and critics alike and holds much significance to the French Revolution, for afterwards this painting and Marat’s death were used to essentially rally anybody who wanted to overthrow the nobility and monarchy during the revolution, this event and this portrayal of it immortalized Marat and the essence of what it meant to be a revolutionary man. It made him seem as a martyr, that in his last moments he was working towards what many deem a better France and a more democractic government. Oh and if you’re wondering, no, Corday did not save her family or the wealth she aimed to keep from the revolutionaries, and I thought I was a failure. 

Anyways Marat is an important figure to the revolution, to France, and the world in general, but he was also rather successful in his endeavors. He’s practically the opposite of our narrator and the mention of this painting reminds me of Hamlet and the scene in which Hamlet holds Yorick’s skull and realizes that death spares no one, it’ll come for the rich and poor alike and rip the joy and life out from one in a heartbeat (this is really depressing but truth has no moral yall.) However, unlike Hamlet our protagonist doesn’t necessarily realize the importance of life or have an epiphany at the thought at such a sudden and gruesome death. Moshfegh could’ve thrown out any famous painting, she could’ve even made one up right then and there, but she didn’t, she chose to make this allusion and further link the motif of death and art to the narrator, as though the two, just like the painting, are physically linked to one another in life and more specifically to the narrator’s life. 

Perhaps the use of such allusion was used to bring in the afterthought of what our narrator desires the most: rebirth and falling in love with life again. You see Marat in this painting is depicted as someone pure, someone accomplished, and above all someone loved. Within the painting he is depicted with a soft, light, glow on his skin immediately drawing the eye to him, that even in death he still attracts the attention of others, but not because he wanted it, but instead because he was fighting for something and people appreciate that, and that is what the narrator craves: love, respect, and attention. Throughout this novel and the continuation of the Moshfegh’s style, readers are always slapped in the face by the emptiness, precision, and occasional bitterness. Our narrator is so clearly depressed and exhausted by life, for existence has become nothing for her and she, whether or not choses to admit it, is defeated by that. She wants to live, she wants to fall in love with life again, and be happy because she is so tired of such a dreary and muted existence that belongs to her unlike that of Marat. 

Perhaps the Death of Marat was brought up for other reasons, or maybe I hit the nail on the head (I like to think I did because my ego refuses to let me think otherwise), or maybe I am overthinking and over interpreting as Saleehia would think I am, but for me I believe it’s the author’s way of saying that just like the narrator, us readers aren’t ever as great or will be as Marat was perceived as. Because unlike him we all continue on rather mute existences and further on don’t really change our lives or the world, it’s almost as though the Moshfegh is calling out the ordinary man through the narrator’s likes and dislikes in a way to challenge the lives we slave away at simply because they are what she would deem as terrible as death itself. Or maybe she just put it in there because the French revolution was wild. Guillotines and fires everywhere and rich mean people dying, we should really bring that back.

“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.”

– Jack Kerouac