In Sandy Hingston’s “The death of the funeral business”, the story motivates people into moving into different sets of values or beliefs that weren’t acquainted in their previous ideas. I feel the understanding of change in culture is motivating the author. The time that she is living a time and era in which we as the people search for many ways to have freedom. This includes freedom of choice from the restraints of our own minds such as culture and beliefs we are so accustomed to. Hingston is seeing as a change on how we perceive our body because of the time and era it occurs in. One of the the biggest change in history is the since 1884 which introduced the use cremation. This later rose in popularity overtime in which it finally reached …show more content…
In the beginning observations of this story, I learned the unique set of structure used. She started of early in the story stating “43% of American’s who died last year were burned instead of buried”. This represents the idea that there is a significant change in the way we dispose our bodies. The author also introduced a change of traditional methods to modern methods in the structuring of the text. Authors key focus was cultural change. Readings show that people who don’t believe in Christ(Atheism) rose thirteen percent in 2012-2013. This change and rise resurrected ne ideas about our bodies. Traditionally people will get buried as form of laying your body in the ground for the coming of Christ. Since the rise of atheism, however, people think as they don’t need to bury themselves and can use an alternate way they feel that suits them and their body when they …show more content…
Hingston since a recession in America, people in the nation searched for cheaper alternates even it went against their beliefs. Traditional funeral cost $8,300 versus $1,400(not including urn and service). She acknowledges that not only does this help people and their choices with their body, but it causes a loss in jobs. Funeral directors dropped nineteen percent from 2001 to 2011. This is major problem for which the funeral business can’t really compete against a rising change in beliefs and economic status. Anthropologist Janet Monge notes “That no ones going to take care of cemeteries” (composition reader Pg.43). She acclaimed this because of the decline in the funeral business and the lack of competition against other people ideas and methods.
The author uses relationship with new choices from change on personal view, culture, or economic status. I’ve noticed to through my observations that the author uses Pathos to shift my emotion of understanding to a feeling of sympathy. This highly effected me when expression the loss of the funeral business. The other also uses sequence structure to give you step by step
... methods that all rely on pathos. Nikiforuk’s article successfully grabs the reader’s attention and emotion from the beginning and maintains it throughout the text by his skillful use of rhetorical strategies.
The article was an enjoyment to read. It provides an insider's view of what goes on in the mortuary, where not many people can access. It deals with a subject which people do not usually seek information on but are nonetheless intrigued by. The style lessens the formality of the subject, which makes it less scary to deal with. The descriptive language is effectively used. The expression of the author's feeling and thoughts encourages empathy from the reader with the author.
It is 2018 and the world is moving faster and faster every day. Clicking, typing, swiping and texting; with more to come. Every year there is a new iPhone, and every model has more storage, clearer cameras, and more accessibility overall. Young adults are interested in majoring in a technology-based field. Not necessarily because they are so interested in learning it, but because the technology industry is booming. There is nothing anyone can do to alter the speed of technological advancement. Chuck Klosterman elaborates on this idea in his short essay, “Electric Funeral.” His viewpoint is that no matter how much people miss the old world, it does not matter because “the future makes the
She opens up her essay by saying “How surprised [Yorick] would be to see how his counterpart of today is whisked off to a funeral parlor and is in short order sprayed, sliced, pierced, pickled, trussed, trimmed, creamed, waxed, painted, rouged, and neatly dressed transformed from a common corpse into a Beautiful Memory Picture.”(Mitford) Funerals are meant to protect people from seeing what kind of toll death has on their loved one; to remove the scars of being human. Kubler-Ross touches on this when she says “The more we are making advancements in science, the more we seem to fear and deny the reality of death. How is this possible? We use euphemisms, we make the dead look as if they were asleep” (Kubler-Ross) which connects to her opinion that death is feared and people take responsibility when a loved one dies, even if they had no impact on their death. The eradication of the sense of death is the key reason why the deceased are embalmed. Clifton Bryant discusses that the reason why people want to have their dead embalmed is because of “death anxiety”, that it is the collective phrase for all the different and complex fears of death. He later states that death anxiety is why we tend to have “death denial” and why we tend to avoid it wholly. “Likewise, the use of metaphors or euphemisms that serve to soften the harshness of death (e.g., passed away, deceased, expired) clearly represents a culturally approved attempt to deny or camouflage death's impact on our daily lives.”(Bryant) This reflects well on the point Mitford makes, when she says “[The funeral director] put on a well-oiled performance in which the concept of death played no part whatsoever” (Mitford) Kubler-Ross feels that death being ever increasingly more taboo the more
In digging the day of the dead a distinction between Dia de los Muertos and Halloween is made, the purpose, to highlight the differences and showing the importance and significance of Dia de los Muertos. This ethnography begins by loosely describing Halloween in American culture, it is described as a day where “children dress up as grotesque corpses” and a celebration empty of historic or cultural significance and knowledge. The author Juanita Garciagodoy, later goes on to describe Dia de los Muertos in a romanticized way, by statin that the dead “are not forgotten or excluded from recollections, prayer, or holidays because they are no longer visible” Garciagodoy then goes on to tell a heartfelt story about a couple one holding on to tradition,
Unburied people will be unable to find rest and will wander the earth forever, which is why it was so important that I must bury my brother. For Polyneices to rest properly, there needs to be a burial. The word of the gods emphasize the necessity of a proper burial and indicate the negligence of burial rites as an abuse to a man’s rights to an afterlife. Burials are a critical municipal and religious duty, not simply because it is a valued personal concern, but also because it is a social obligation. While a respectable king is expected to be able to make wise decisions independently, he cannot be considered a perceptive ruler if he does not follow the will of the
In the past four decades the cost of a funeral service has risen 1,328% (Boring) and that’s not just because Morticians wanted to out of pure greed. One must take into account that modern mortuaries are much more of a business than before. Prior to 1970, the majority of funeral homes were were independent, family run. Today about 14% of funeral homes are run by a publicly traded corporation (Boring) meaning there’s a plethora of capital involved in these businesses now. The homes are built better and by professionals rather than by individuals with some tools, the home’s are extremely more sanitary since there’s more than likely no one living in these funeral homes unlike before, and the quality of the products these services are providing is greater than before.
“In most human society's death is an extremely important cultural and social phenomenon, sometimes more important than birth” (Ohnuki-Tierney, Angrosino, & Daar et al. 1994). In the United States of America, when a body dies it is cherished, mourned over, and given respect by the ones that knew the person. It is sent to the morgue and from there the family decides how the body should be buried or cremated based on...
Owens and Sawhill use pathos to evoke the feelings of their readers. This method establishes
Deaths were a form of social event, when families and loved ones would gather around the bed of the dying, offering emotional support and comfort. Myth, religion, and tradition would combine to give the event deeper meaning and ease the transition for all involved. The one who was dying was confident in knowing what lay behind the veil of death, thanks to religious faith or tradition. His or her community held fast to the sense of community, drawing strength from social ties and beliefs. (“Taboos and Social Stigma - Rituals, Body, Life, History, Time, Person, Human, Traditional Views of Death Give Way to New Perceptions" 1)
Jessica Mitford uses several different quotes to bring written explanations to how the process of embalming works and to also support her view that embalming is a horrible process. After reading these quotes, an uneasy and negative feeling towards the practice and the people who perform and support it. The reason being is that Mitford uses quotes that use a passive tone towards the subject being talked about. She also uses quotes that make it personal to the reader. By quoting these specific words and phrases, Mitford portrays embalming and those who perform it as insensitive to the postmortem ceremony.
This paper leaves off where another one could and probably should start. The topic would be: ¡§How to Completely Satisfy a Funeral Consumer¡K Beyond There Own Expectations.¡¨
Death – the mystifying master of non-discrimination; something that touches all of humanity in the most melancholic ways. Typically as a whole, instead of embracing our inevitable demise, society fears death. Society is what makes death “mystifying”. Despite the fear of the unknown, people often have questions about death – yet most people don’t like to talk about it, let alone be around it willingly. Furthermore, very few people actually pursue their questions and/or curiosities about death. Those who do are a rare few that we can’t help but question their choices sometimes. In her memoir, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes: And Other Lessons from the Crematory”, Caitlin Doughty recounts the early beginnings of her fascination of all things macabre, as well as career as a mortician with a lighthearted – yet dark – humorous view that somehow lifts the veil of death and what happens to “us” (i.e. our bodies) after death, as well as the practices of morticians and funeral homes.
The concept of human mortality and how it is dealt with is dependent upon one’s society or culture. For it is the society that has great impact on the individual’s beliefs. Hence, it is also possible for other cultures to influence the people of a different culture on such comprehensions. The primary and traditional way men and women have made dying a less depressing and disturbing idea is though religion. Various religions offer the comforting conception of death as a begining for another life or perhaps a continuation for the former.
I was very excited to take Death and Dying as a college level course. Firstly, because I have always had a huge interest in death, but it coincides with a fear surrounding it. I love the opportunity to write this paper because I can delve into my own experiences and beliefs around death and dying and perhaps really establish a clear personal perspective and how I can relate to others in a professional setting.