Analysis Of Nancy Scheper-Hughes's Death Without Weeping

In Death Without Weeping, the author Nancy Scheper-Hughes explains the everyday life of sickness, and death of children in shantytown called the Alto de Cruzeiro. She continues on to explain how most newborn babies are left alone to die without any care. In our culture that is extremely looked down upon and most people stop and think, how could you do something so horrible to an innocent newborn baby. Again, this article is a prime example how cultures differ in so many ways possible that most of us don’t even realize. Something that caught my eye right off the bat was when Scheper-Hughes asked Nailza de Arruda, “Why do the church bells ring so much?”. She got a reply of, “Oh it’s nothing….just another little angel gone to heaven”. Reading that blew my mind because Nailza nonchalantly said what she said as if it was no big deal and how it occurred all the time. The author states, “Most [babies] had died unnamed and were hastily baptized in their coffin.” Again,

Nobody cries. And the deceased doesn’t even get a cross or headstone where he/she is buried. They will actually reuse the same spot to bury more children a couple other times. She also says that the mother will never visit the grave, and it turns “anonymous”. In our culture, it’s common for families to be depressed when their loved one passes away. They love them, and have a bond with that person, so funerals in our culture are always a very emotional and hard time for people. And I feel like it would be even worse to have a funeral for a child who passed, because they didn’t get to experience what the real world is like. They were still in their young and innocent days. Death hits us hard in our culture and deeply hurts the family members who have the deal with the passing of their loved one. In contrary, it is complete opposite for the culture that was talked about in the