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 story I wish to share this week for the written assignment is The Cremation of Sam McGee by Robert W. Service. The story is about a man named Sam McGee and his quest for riches during the gold rush along trail in the frozen Yukon Territory. As he traveled with his best friend Cap, he spent a great deal of time whining and complaining about how ever since he left his home in Tennessee he had been cold. Many nights Cap had to endure the same conversation revolving around this topic.
In this article, “The Mistreatment of Dead Bodies,” author Joel Feinberg argues the misunderstanding of using cadavers for organ donation, and research. Feinberg discusses the modern issue many people have with attaching sentimental value with a dead body, letting their values outweigh and halt the necessary uses for cadavers (31). Cadavers being used for medical training, organ donation, and forensic research, provide as great utility for people. Feinberg states that in 1978, a dispute between a California Congressman and The Department of Transportation developed when The Department of Transportation began to use cadavers in place of dummies in collision tests for more detailed research. These detailed tests would cover every gruesome angle
In “Amazing Grace”, Cliffie, while eating a chocolate chip cookie, shows Kozol a waste incinerator “burning ‘red bag’ products, such as amputated limbs...bedding bandages.” (l. 74-76) Cliffe calls these products ‘burning bodies,’ relating to how bad the air is around them thanks to the products being burned and how people get sick and can die from not breathing enough good air. If the cities found a new, cleaner way of disposing of trash, like recycling, then we would have cleaner air for everyone. Second, we can brighten the world by sharing extra goods with people around us that don’t have what we have.
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.
Do authors develop characters from the beginning of a book to the end of a book to thicken the plot? In the book Death Struck Year by Makiia Lucier, the Spanish Influenza breaks out in Oregon. Cleo Berry is a normal teenager worrying about her future life as her brother and his wife head out on an anniversary trip to San Francisco. Cleo is left at a boarding school for girls as the epidemic spreads further. The boarding school gets shut down and Cleo decides to run away and volunteer for the Red Cross.
The poem The Cremation of Sam Mcgee takes a lot of turns throughout but always seems to keep to the themes of perseverance and friendship. This is evident in the things that the narrator does throughout the poem to keep his promise to his friend. A promise that seemed impossible to accomplish in the dead of winter on an Artic trail. The poem is about a trip to the Yukon back in the days of the gold rush. The poems narrator tells us a story about his friend Sam Mcgee who freezes to death during their journey.
At some point, all people must accept the harsh truth of mortality. When people realize it for the first time, they can go through a change in character. The young medic Rat Kiley, a character in Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, exemplifies this. His reaction to the sudden death of his best friend Curt Lemon, as portrayed in “How to Tell a True War Story,” depicts the shift of character that accompanies loss. Moreover, it reflects the inability of soldiers to return to normalcy after experiencing the traumas of grief.
The next time this topic came up with a patient was during a visit on October 23rd. I asked her how she selected this form of burial, she hesitated at first and then said that her decision was economically based. She then continued on by listing the benefits of being cremated besides saving money, such as “I wount have bugs crawling all in me and I will always be with my family.” It seemed like she was justifying her decision with herself, so that she could be at peace.
The Things They Carried is a war novel written by former soldier Tim O’Brien. This novel is a depiction of experiences that O’Brien endured while serving in the war. This powerful and unique novel expresses many themes such as mortality, bravery, and the weight of physical and emotional burdens, which help weave together the horrors of life as a soldier. In The Things They Carried, being a story about war, the theme of mortality is written many times throughout the book.
Demoralization: to cause (someone) to lose confidence or hope; dispirit. Being physically degraded is much different than mental degradation; physical abasement includes loss of muscle, fat, and other bodily necessities. Mental ignominy is getting stripped of your dignity, self-worth, and confidence. The novel Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand follows Louie Zamperini, an olympic runner and world war 2 bombardier, through his journey of agony and triumph. Prisoners of war (POW’s) were often treated similar to slaves, while being isolated from the rest of the world.
Get Rich or Die Trying During the Yukon trail gold rush, many people risked their lives and many others died all because they wanted gold to have a better life and provide for their families. In Robert W. Service’s poem “The Cremation of Sam McGee” it depicts the struggles the characters went through for gold. This poem which was written a hundred years ago is still a relevant poem today, because of its figurative language, voice, and imagery. Robert Service’s first literary term is figurative language.
In 1300, under Pope Boniface the eighth, the church banned any form of dissection or autopsy of the human body. It was believed that the dismembering of the dead would thwart the soul from rising to heaven (Link 1). As a result, very
Nowadays debris is an integral part of humanity life. Mankind thinks about how to make the product easier and cheaper to use, but nobody cares what happens with waste after it was used. We contaminate the environment with every decade increasingly: muddied air and water, global warming are an output of human life. The worst thing is that from such attitude other living beings are dying. Millions of animals and birds cannot withstand such environmental changes; their populations become smaller and, eventually, disappear altogether from the face of the earth.
The full process of sky burial is costly. For the people who could not bear the burden of the cost, they would put the dead’s body on a rock that is high and just let the body decay. Other animals as well as the birds might also eat the body. To those who practice sky burial, they see it as a generous act for the dead since he/she living relatives are making food available for other living things.
