The Carcass by Charles Baudelaire is a poem about the inevitability of death. Baudelaire describes how hideous the carcass was by stating “Her legs were spread out like a lecherous whore, Sweating out poisonous fumes, Who opened in slick invitational style Her stinking and festering womb.” Although Baudelaire depicts how terrible the carcass appeared, his perspective on death also stimulates his mind to see the beauty in it by describing how the carcass essentially fed the land.

In the 10th stanza Baudelaire explains how his lover will also inevitability turn rotten and decompose. Furthermore the circle of life is clearly shown when the carcass is consumed by flies, maggots, and birds while he is explicitly stating how repulsive his lover will appear when she dies and that her body will also be consumed by nature. I Believe that the message Baudelaire is trying to convey in this poem is that nature is not prejudice or discriminate, it takes life and gives life because it’s simply nature and that even though death is ugly there is also an oddly alluring beauty to it as well.