In Fried Green Tomatoes a character dies. As soon as this happens, another character covers the framed photograph of her that is hanging on the wall, and stops the pendulum on the grandfather clock.
What is the origin of this practice, and what demographic population practices it.
Does the clock part perhaps relate to My Grandfather’s Clock?
The song? I thought of that. (It was used as a plot for a Twilight Zone episode, which used the first line of the chorus for the title.)
But does stopping the clock come from the song? Or is it from another tradition? And who follows it historically and today?
Based on a web search, it appears that stopping the clock at the time of death appears to have been a Victorian custom. No idea of the exact origin, though.
The idea is that time no longer applies to the deceased, as I understand it.
I believe that stopping the clock is simply an easy way to note the time of death.
I haven’t watched FGT for a while, but are you sure it wasn’t a mirror that Sipsey covered? Googling “mirror cover death” brings up some interesting ideas: that the mirror could trap the dead person’s soul, that the next person to look in a mirror after the death (and before the body was removed) would be the next to die, a Jewish practice so that (1) mourners are not concerned with their appearance and (2) to prevent “idolatry” (viewing a human image) while praying in the same room, etc.
If it wasn’t a mirror, maybe the glass over the photo could be considered enough of a reflector not to take a chance. Sipsey was pretty darned superstitious (if you read the book, remember the pig skulls?).
Didn’t read the book, and I don’t have a way to check to see if it was a mirror instead of a photograph. I suppose it could have been.
Hi Johnny,
Sipsey actually covers a mirror, not a photograph. The mirror has a portrait of a little girl in a white dress at the top of it, but the little portrait is not of Ruth. I actually have this very mirror. I had no idea until I saw the movie that there was more than one of these mirrors. Imagine my surprise, huh?
Anyway, I’m in Montgomery, AL, and I think this is an old tradition all over the south and not just in Alabama. I don’t know anyone who does it today, though. I think the tradition went out years ago, once most people started dying in hospitals instead of at home. But the point of covering all the mirrors in the house (the movie didn’t show it, but Sipsey would have covered all the mirrors, not just the one shown in the movie) was so that the dead person’s spirit didn’t “go into” the mirror and get lost in the mirror instead of going to heaven. The idea being that mirrors could somehow trap the souls of the departed. I also know that you wouldn’t cover your mirrors for any other reason than someone dying in the house. For instance, you wouldn’t cover your mirrors if a loved one in another city died.
From what my mom and grandmother told me growing up, the point of stopping the clocks is to show that time stopped for the family when the person died and also noted the time of death. Nobody in my family ever did this during my lifetime, and I’ve lost my grandmother, a great aunt, two cousins, and both parents so far. Just FYI, I’m 45.
I don’t know the origin of doing these two things, so I’m sorry I can’t help you there. And I don’t know anyone who currently does them. In fact, I don’t think anyone does them anymore.
Thanks, Clothilde. Between your post and Scarlett67’s I’m convinced it was a mirror in the movie, and not a photograph. I remembered seeing a female image, and you say there is one – just not the one I assumed.