HW 50 - First Third of Care-of-the-Dead Book Post

Precis

I immerse myself into the world of funeral family business where the role of the undertaker is almost as cartoonish as saying undertakers are death-fairies.  The funeral process represents the transcendence from life to death - the "in-between" we all fear to such an extent that we have made caring for the dead more a corporate industry than a tool for emotional catharsis.  You can never get used to the smell of artificially colored chemicals pumped into the lifeless bodies of the dead without losing sight of having to protect the dignity of the dead with the use of overly expensive caskets, embalming, the use of pink, purple chemicals to restore natural glow, and social constructs.

Quotes

- "When Glenn comes back from a removal with a small cardboard box, we gather around to see what he's brought.  Natalie opens it.  Inside is an infant, blue-grey.  She lifts it up.  It's still wearing a Muppets diaper.  'Aww' she says,'I can't wait to have kids." (Jokinen 17).

- "In my head, it sounds like a fairy-tale: the dead come from a magic place called the Silver Doors, from which they are whisked into boxes or made to drink potions that turn them from yellow to green, then they're painted pink and purple and powdered, and some are baked in an oven where they are turned into flour by special death-fairies" (Jokinen 19).

- "I have to provide, as a funeral director, the things people want.  It's how people feel about the body and what it needs to do, the idea of being resurrected, to be whole again" (Jokinen 41).

- "Some bodies will raise their arms in the retort like they're hailing a cab, a result of tendons contracting in the intense heat: what an odd relief, even in death, we find ways to express ourselves" (Jokinen 47).

- "This is the unembalmed, undecorated, raw look of death" (Jokinen 51).

Analysis

After having read the first third of Curtains, I can say with certainty that I've had my share of cringing and horrid visuals.  Like our Birth Unit, Care of the dead and the funeral process definitely have their dominant routines and practices, some atrociously industrialized and others not.  Neil Bardal Inc. - "The factory", where embalming and cremation takes places, is described to tag along with it a feeling of uneasiness from the nonchalance of the workers and single blinds separating the customers from the monstrous "retorts"/ovens and prepping and embalming rooms.  This exhibits that our society has created a far from slapdash structure and system for caring for the dead.  We have created a corporate industry where memento moris and burial robes are sold and bought, a clear demonstration of our society's desire for "fantasy of redemption" and escape from savage nature, in which we are all, or will be, participants of sex and death.  In light of this perspective, what truth are we hiding from?  Why do we force death into the ground in far, often remote, suburban land?  I'd like to think that we hide from the inevitable fate of man to grasp what Jokinen calls "grief therapy."  We desire grief therapy because we are always seeking refugee in times of hardship.  The easiest way of reaching some sort of safe-haven is to try to preserve the dead with modern technology: caskets with seals to keep out bacteria and worms.  This comes to question: What are we trying to protect?  To be frank, we, apart from funeral directors and undertakers, are foreigners to the department of dealing with the dead.  We can only sympathize, suffer, and inquire.

Works Cited

- Jokinen, Tom. Curtains. 1st ed. Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Press, 2010. 1-279. Print