Dying the Bad Death: Critique of the Suicide Burial in Robert Southey’s “The Cross Roads”

Abstract

Mistreatment of the body following a stigmatized death is a culturally relevant issue that disproportionately affects marginalized groups. Robert Southey’s “The Cross Roads” details the life and death of a young working class woman through a folkloric retelling of her murder. In this work, I curate a historical review of the period’s values regarding stigmatized death, including the religious attitudes regarding suicide and domestic homicide. The previous historical review is then put into dialogue with Southey’s work in order to fully contextualize his criticism of the crossroad burial practice. Moving forward, research may be applied to literary works outside of the 18th century graveyard movement in order to fully understand how and why working class bodies are mistreated in life and death.