The study aims at a genealogical understanding of the metaphor and image of nakedness as an expression of suffering and identity. When contemporary Finnish carers of the dying, whose writings formed the core of my data, described the situation by the deathbed, they repeatedly depicted the dying person metaphorically as being undressed, as naked in front of death. The metaphor of nakedness seemed to refer to a situation of ultimate vulnerability, but also of authenticity for both the dying and the carer. In contemporary culture it is also used in the opposite sense. For example the artist has to strip herself naked in order to reach her authentic expression.
Nakedness can, in short, refer both to vulnerability and suffering or to pure authenticity.
The present study aims at tracing and locating the roots and various meanings of the metaphor of nakedness in the Western cultural imaginary. This theoretical chapter shall treat the question of metaphor as expression of life and the human body as the base of metaphoricity. The biblical naked . A chapter on the biblical roots of the image of the naked. In the bible the metaphor is frequent both in the Old and the New Testament.