“Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” Analysis Essay Thinking of the deceased might not be pleasant and make you cringe, but the way Jessica Mitford describes the deceased will leave you wanting to know more. It all begins with a dead body heading down to the funeral parlor ready to go through the embalming process. Mitford clearly professes her opposition through the embalming process with her narrative diction while using imagery, diction, and metaphors to clearly persuade the reader’s mood to change. Milford’s first person narrative allows the reader to truly become persuaded over her argument against the unfair routine that is practiced in the funeral industry. One becomes more engaged into the story through this narrative method. It becomes very clear through her personal opinion and descriptions that her goal is to educate what is occurring and truly happening at funeral practices. Her sarcastic tone helps accomplish her purpose very thoroughly and well. “Embalming is indeed a most extraordinary procedure, and one must wonder at the docility of Americans who …show more content…
Throughout the passage, Mitford uses various examples and perfectly describes what everything is used for and the effect that it has after the cause or outcome of it. “’ It is necessary to remove the blood, and doing this not only helps in the disinfecting, but removes the principal cause of disfigurements due to discoloration’” (Mitford 2). When Mitford uses this rhetorical mode, it makes the reader feel as if they are truly there knowing the reasons the dead people are turning a certain color or having to be cut or stabbed. “If Mr. Jones has died of jaundice, the embalming fluid will very likely turn him green” (Mitford 4). She informs the reader on how the process is done, why it is done, and the purpose of why it is done. This assists her thesis by persuading with facts and allowing the reader to be informed and believe what she is