HW 51:Second Third of Care of The Dead Book

 Precis:

I have officially learned that  if someone would like to have their after the dead practices taken care for them by a professional, it can done but it will be carried out a certain way. If the financial situation hasn't been taken care of before the death, things become even more complicated since the funeral must decide the "quality" of the funeral. It can range from as little as $1000 to $20,000 easily. When it comes the time for a funeral we often seem conflicted as we are stuck grieving and arranging an incredibly difficult thing to do. As we begin to move to the future it seems as though preparing funeral plans before the actual funeral has an "unexpected benefit" it takes some pressure off the  family.

Quotes:

• " The Factory at night is a menacing sight. Locking up my bike, the only lights I can see are those of the airport to the west, and the open garage door of the crematorium, where Adina and Glenn are waiting for the delivery.'' (Jokinen 123)
• "Neil thinks it matters to people that the bag they get back is as close to pure former-human being as us Factory monkeys can make it.  That's why he charges more than the local deep-discount bake-and-shakers.  It's the difference between a silk tie and clip-on." (Jokinen 120)
• “What made Ray Brent Marsh different from his neighbors was not that he was insane, but that he’d lost all reverence for and fear of the dead” (Jokinen 131)

• "For nearly two hundred years, funeral service has had a firm foundation in American culture based upon Judeo/Christian priorities... The question is, what does the consumer really want, and how could operators achieve superior profits by breaking with the past." (Jokinen 141)

Analysis:

Part two of curtains was just as enlightening and enriching as the first part in my opinion. When my grandmother died in 2007 we went to the funeral home to pick out caskets. It turns out my grandmother was also somewhere in the funeral home and was just finishing her embalming. Only the adults were allowed to see here as it my "taint my innocence". Ever since then I have always wanted to know what happens to a dead body once they are taken away from their site of death. I never knew that the undertakers and other funeral home people put so much effort in trying to make a dead body look alive. Personally I always thought they did a bad job, there was either too much makeup on or, too much embalming fluid in, I never really seemed to notice the lipstick since I've been to mostly funerals for females. But this all might seem necessary to help us cope with the pain of losing her beloved since it really is one of the hardest things. Our dominant social practices might be right on this one, or at least I think so.