Talking death: An analysis of selected entries in frida kahlo’s diary

Abstract

This essay draws on pragmatic act theory and literary pragmatics to examine those entries in Frida Kahlo’s diary that either explicitly or implicitly address the topic of death and dying, as motivated by the artist’s tragic life events and lifelong ill health. If, as Freud famously stated, it is impossible for us to contemplate our nonbeing, then the paper examines how Kahlo affords to talk about death and dying. The following strategies are observed in the diary entries: (1) blurring of the authorial voice, (2) blurring of conventional graphic divisions, (3) blurring of the author and reader conventional boundaries by means of self-fictionalization, and (4) dialectic self-talking. These strategies serve a pragmatic purpose, that is, denying what has been stated (i.e., denying talking about death) or denying the obvious (the eventuality of death). It is argued that the analysis of Kahlo’s diary is a contribution to literary pragmatics. None of these strategies could perform the action of denying the obvious if the author and the reader do not dialectically convene to follow and, simultaneously, break literary and sociocultural conventions. This is possible because both share a common sociocultural ground in which death is deemed as unsayable.