Death and Dying in Babylon

The image of Dora Mae's naked body standing in front of the saloon window staring blankly out on to the street outside then suddenly being grabbed from behind by a man's dirty, ragged arm and dragged back into what could only be some fresh hell of savage debauchery. The imagery was haunting and frightening. For years, this imagery has resonated in my mind and influenced my notions on death and dying for some years now. That if you don't die well, that you can be trapped for eternity in a never ending hellish nightmare. STUCK! Just like Dora Mae the ONLY GIRL in a town full of lascivious, barbaric miners, sexually used and abused by them...day and night with no hope for escape or salvation.

It has been approximately 6 years since I first witnessed that scene, but the residue of it was still there. I had to see it again, so I rented the HBO Carnivale series and began to re-watch it again. Seeing the Babylon and Pick A Number episodes last night, brought some additional insight to me.

Babylon begins with the following quote "...And on her forehead, a name was written, a mystery. 'Babylon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth..."

During the course of this episode, Dora Mae makes it clear that she enjoys being a "cooch" dancer in the family Gay Paree carnival show. While Ben was working outside one day, Dora Mae approaches him reveals that one of her breasts is larger than the other, then draws in closer to him and offers a kiss. Later in the Babylon episode, exposing her plump, naked body to the miners during the Carnival "Cooch" show "blow off", a tent full of hardened miners are aroused into a frenzy and began to claw and clutch at Dora and began to drag her off the stage. She managed to escape, but not for long. Later that night, Dora Mae is murdered in Babylon. We find out in the "Pick a Number" episode that she was murdered so that her soul will be "stuck" in Babylon along with the miners' souls to provide comfort and company to the men.
I found it interesting that they chose Dora Mae over her sister, Libby. Dora was ample breasted and plump while Libby thin and flat chested. Both equally salacious during the night's cooch dance, but they chose to murder the plump one. Interesting.

After watching Pick A Number again last night, the allegory of the entire episode and for that matter the entire series began to make sense to me. DUH! The mining town of Babylon is HELL. Dora Mae was condemned and suffered the consequences of her actions and had been sentenced to an eternity of doing the very thing she revered so much in life. Still doesn't do much to dispel my notions about not dying well. I'm still struggling with that.