Essays on Burial Rites

Set against the bleak Icelandic landscape, Kent’s “Burial Rites” explores the life of condemned women, Agnes Magnusdottir. By allowing Agnes to have a voice – readers are able to understand her death as a product of not only her own choices but the society in which she lived in. A society in which powerful men with status are favoured and prejudice is pervasive. Thus, Kent seeks to shed light on how Agnes’s death sentence cannot be blamed on Agnes herself…

The inclusion of Agnes’ first person narration positions us to feel more sympathy for her.’ To what extent do you agree? Hannah Kent’s speculative biography ‘Burial Rites’, tells the tragic story behind Agnes Magnusdottir’s final months of life. Throughout her novel, Kent presents a critical analysis of the patriarchal society of the 19th century Iceland which harshly judges and condemns those who are on the margins of life. As Kent masterfully entwines first and third person narratives, she portrays the…

In today’s society, some would say that we have moved past our differences and that we have fully accepted one another as we are. Those people are the dreamers and begrugent nonbelievers that wish not to accept the truth of what this world and the efforts of those from the past have become. It is sad to recognize that the efforts of the past have been drastically obstructed, if the social warriors of the past saw the conditions of today’s…