The Good Death And David Stannard's The Puritan Way Of Death

The other way the families tried to maintain the Good Death was through embalming. “Embalming offered families a way to combat at least some the threats the war posed to the principles of the Good Death (Faust 93).” The undertakers during the Civil War took advantage of the grieving families in search of the Good Death for their soldiers. Not every family received a letter, not every family knew when or where their soldier died, and not every family had comfort that their soldier received the Good Death. Families then took the initiative into their own hands, and they went to search for their fallen soldiers. Undertakers would travel through battle ground and embalm any bodies that they could, so that families could bring their soldiers home

The Puritans do not reassure their families of their faith as Faust describes Civil War soldiers, and they don 't have final moments with their families as the dying do with Ariès’ Tame Death. The Puritans live in a constant state of fear of death and fear for their own salvation. For the Puritans, there was no sure way to know if anyone was truly going to heaven or hell, but there were visual signs of the ones who were predetermined for salvation. Although, these people were not allowed to show any sign that they themselves believed they were saved. “In other words, the best sign of assurance was to be unsure (Stannard 75).” The Puritans called death “the King of Terrors;” which there is a certain nobility to a type of faith that is based off of pure fear of the chance of being predetermined to

This is an important concept to understand when reading these authors because in the back of their minds, they are comparing the way that people wanted to die at the time to the way Ariès defines the Good Death. For Ariès, the ideal death encompasses all aspects of the Tame Death: acceptance, last rites, and with knowledge of death’s imminence. For Rothman it is relatively similar, people strived to have accepted with their tuberculosis, faith in their salvation, make amends with family and friends, and death without pain. Faust describes the ideal death of Civil War soldiers by saying that it is best if the soldiers leave a note or fellow soldiers write to the families in place of the deceased, in order to bring some type of comfort. Also, Faust states the importance of the family having the body to bury. Orwell declares that the most ideal death is a sudden death, because death in a hospital is the worst way to die. Kaufman contends that the Good Death is a death where the patient has agency and can die before the line is crossed over into unnecessary prolongation of life. Finally, Stannard takes a completely different approach in that the Puritans consider the best death as one of complete uncertainty and anticipation of whether the dying is predetermined to heaven or hell. The main point is that during Ariès’ period of the Tame Death, the