Every day, every hour, a person passes away. What would they say? What would they say if they knew what would happen to their corpses’ after their passing? What would they say if they knew the cost of their funeral? In Jessica Mitford’s “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” the practices of the funeral agency are examined in detail. Mitford raises questions regarding the legality behind the embalmment process and goes into the gory aspects of what goes on in the backrooms of funeral groups nationwide. Additionally, “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” presents a compelling and unnerving argument, against the perpetuation of the commercialism of death, and the funeral industry in North America.
Every year without exception, Americans willingly shovel millions of dollars into the market of embalmment, and presenting the dead. The funeral industry has become a commercial venture, in
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Not one in ten thousand has any idea of what actually takes place.” The process of embalmment is quite gruesome. I could go into detail on the subject, but I would prefer not to, rather I will quote the text in saying: “Embalming is indeed a most extraordinary procedure…if the funeral men are loath to discuss the subject outside of trade, the reader may understandably, be equally loath to go on reading at this point.” From this quote, we can see that the process of embalmment is quite sickening to even think about. Embalmment is a process which is done to prepare corpses for viewing. The things that must be done to prepare the body are quite disgusting, and it is the sickness of the procedure leads readers to ask the questions: is it moral to embalm a body? (and) Will I be embalmed when I die? I personally do not believe that it is immoral to embalm a body, if, and only if the deceased gave permission before there death. Otherwise, embalmment is an immoral thing to
Have you ever been to a funeral and wondered how a dead body can look so clean and lively? How can it look as if it hasn’t been dead for a little over a minute? That’s due to the process known as embalming. Embalming is the preservation of human remains, using chemicals, in order to prevent decomposition. It is used to make sure that the corpse is presentable on the day of the funeral.
According to The Oxford English Dictionary, embalming is the process of preserving and sanitizing a dead body for the main use of public viewings such as funerals. However, is it necessary to have this procedure done to a human body after death? Embalming has been a long tradition to the Americans and has been carried around for many years. In modern times, it is important for individuals to decide whether or not they want their own body or a family member to go through this procedure. In Jessica Mitford’s “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain,” she effectively displays how a dead body should be treated with more respect and the practice of embalming should be discontinued.
The undertaker responded to Joan’s request of no embalming by saying that he would just “clean [John] up” (Didion 18). The idea of embalming and hospitals have proven to be essential factors in the invisible
She is trying to express that this method is a startling process and is now believed to be secretive such that only the experts should be involved. She refers in the text that people don’t have the abdominal strength to observe the whole process since it is terrifying. The author defines the embalmed body as peaceful after enduring the entire procedure. The tone in the story is informative in the fact that an individual can know how a body is preserved. The author discusses the benefits that the process has on the corpse.
The last thing I will be discussing in this paper is the funerals. I do not understand how nothing was done or said to the family of Yankel Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum was pretty much in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like Gavin Cato. Now Gavin Cato’s funeral honestly made me mad and disgusted. “I am not
In some regions, death is a word people wail and mourn over, while in others speaking about it is a taboo. This is taken to the extreme in the dystopian book, The Giver, by Lois Lowry. The community in the book sees death in an altered way compared to how the real world does, seeing it for it’s practical uses instead of having emotional ties like the physical reality, which sparks debates on where the line is in terms of the idea of death and whether using death as a tool is ethical. When someone in the real world dies, the people who knew that person mourn them.
But nobody knows what’s going on inside the preparation room, all they see is their deceased relative, good as new, when they walk by the open casket during the funeral. Mitford depicts the American funeral industry’s manipulation of death throughout the essay with either blatant or thinly-veiled verbal irony. In the last paragraph, Mitford states that the funeral director has put on a “well-oiled performance" where "the concept of death played no part whatsoever”, unless providing it was “inconsiderately mentioned” by the funeral conductors. This is extremely ironic because a funeral is supposed to revolved around death, and this makes us think about funerals and the embalmment process in a way that we usually don’t. These processes takes away the cruelty and brutality of death and make it seem trivial while making our deceased relatives life-like, with pink toned skin and a smile on their face, and death is not like that at all.
Jessica Mitford paints a very satirical picture of the world of embalming and uses her many talents to convey her claim that embalming is ridiculous and that people need to know what exactly they’re paying for. Her tone, style, and use of quotations remains solid throughout and never falters or has her readers doubt her
Mitford is not writing to professional morticians because she is explaining things that she would not have to explain if she were talking to a professional. The author in paragraph twenty explains with great detail how to put “Mr. Jones” into the casket. A professional would already know how to lay a corpse in a casket, but a novice like most people would not know the proper way to do so. “The earlier this is done, the better, for every hour that elapses between death and embalming will add to the problems and complications encountered…”This shows how imperative it is to embalm someone quickly so that the corpse will not rot, and the corpse will be preserved long enough for the funeral.
Death plays an important part in everyday life, in the way life moves on, changes, and improves, but in terms of ourselves and our relationship with death, it has become more of a taboo subject. (Needs something here?) The concept of death itself changing as its significance (in how it is viewed from the Victorian era to the present day) reveals how the beautification of death in its interpretation within post – mortem photography, in comparison to how modern day photographers challenge the view of the extraordinary image of death as it is seen today, in which society will not view death as anything but a subject to be avoided due to the way it has become twisted into something of an unspoken topic that would more likely be feared in the modern era rather than embraced. Post – mortem photography became
The smell of newly cut grass was prominent in the air mixed with a hint of body odors among fellow attendants. I shouldn’t be complaining because now I knew there were worst things in the world. Standing in Edgewood-Greenwood Cemetery was one of those worst
It is not easy to make the decision of death. Thus, when a person wants to die with dignity, we as a society should respect their
Every aspect of the funeral, burial, cemetery, and even mourning period is simple and never ostentatious or over the top. A clear set of rules have been written in both the Torah and supporting commentary. Jews believe that once the person has died their soul has also died and that no afterlife exists.
May 15th 2014 The sombre ceremony drew to an end as the teak coffin was clamped shut and lowered into the ground. No trumpets blared and no guns fired. No one shed any tears and no one cared except me because no one was there. With a heavy heart, I turn away and begin the long walk home.
My first experience with my cadaver was quite memorable. The sights, sounds, smells, and textures disturbed me so much that I wrote an entire poem to convince myself that this man, with his lifelike chest hair and gelatinous moles, was only an empty shell that had housed a soul in the past. In comparison, my last day with the cadaver was unremarkable. I had gotten used to the stench of formaldehyde mixed with preserved guts; the thick, juicy layers of subcutaneous fat that so resembled meat trimmings; the nameless fluids and bits of tissue that had collected at the bottom of the body bag; and the act of cutting through something that had once been a living person. More accurately, these aspects of anatomy still bothered me during the first