Objects of the Dead

Abstract

Death reconstructs our experience of personal and household objects in particular ways; there is the strangeness of realising that things have outlived persons, and, in this regard, the materiality of things is shown to be more permanent than the materiality of the body. In this edited extract from her book, 'Objects of the Dead', MARGARET GIBSON examines a poignant, universal and often complex experience—the death of a loved one and the often uneasy process of living with, and discarding, the objects that are left behind. For those who outlive a loved one, the objects that remain are significant memory traces and offer a point of connection with the absent body of the deceased. How and when family property is sorted through after a death is often fraught with difficulties, regrets and disagreements. Objects matter, however, because they are part of us—we imprint objects and they imprint us materially, emotionally and memorially. For the bereaved, objects can transpose into quasi-subjects, moving into that now vacated, bereft place.