4 - Alpha Omega Alpha

Jesse D. Woodard
arat’s terror
The author (AΩA, University of South Carolina, 2008) is
a member of the Class of 2009 at the University of South
Carolina School of Medicine. This essay won first prize in
the 2008 Alpha Omega Alpha Helen H. Glaser Student
Essay competition.
When the prominent French revolutionary Joseph-
Emmanuel Sieyes was asked what role he had
during the French Revolution, he responded “J’ai
vecu.” (“I survived.”) Thousands could not make that claim
during the tumultuous decade from 1789 through 1799. The
period was marked by fear, intrigue, and violence, and no life
more closely paralleled the revolution than that of Jean-Paul
Marat. During a decade of hostility he was L’Ami du Peuple
(The Friend of the People), and even as his cries of Liberté,
égalité, fraternité! rang through the streets of Paris, Marat’s
assassination in 1793 showed that history is less a triumph of
ideology than a series of tragic human atrocities.
Marat, in his own time, was known as a madman, a fanatical
demagogue, and the murderer of thousands. A mysterious
skin disease earned him the stigma of a leper, but he is also
remembered as a doctor, a frustrated scientist, and the subject
of the period’s most memorable painting. The scene of
his death in 1793 was immortalized in Jacques-Louis David’s
masterpiece Death of Marat. The indelible depiction shows
a Christ-like Marat lying dead in his bath, the evidence of his
murder in plain view. Upon its completion, the painting was
carried through the streets of Paris in tribute and Marat was
worshipped as a god.
Joseph Boze (1744–1826): Jean Paul Marat (1744–1789). French
revolutionary. 1793. Painting.
Location: Musée de la Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, France. Photo credit: Alfredo
Dagli Orti, Bildarchiv Pressicher Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY.
The Pharos/Spring 2009 17