Using an interdisciplinary approach, this M.A. thesis explores the theme of death in life. This thesis particularly examines the work of Phillipe Ari�s, Ernest Becker, Terror Management theorists (TMT), Martin Heidegger, and Friedrich Nietzsche. These thinkers are united in their diagnosis of a severe and unhealthy contemporary denial of death. Death has never been repressed as thoroughly as it is in the current era in western culture, to the point that the exclusion of death may well be the characteristic that centrally distinguishes, and threatens the welfare of, our age. Furthermore, our denial of death oftentimes leads to negative attitudes and the harming of others who are different from us. However, there seems to be an alternative way of relating to death. We have the possibility of authentically understanding ourselves as the mortal creatures we are, affirming and even expressing gratitude for death as a meaning-giving element in life.