Summary Of Behind The Formaldehyde Curtain
Jessica Mitford’s tone in “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” is facetious. The first sentence of the first paragraph and the second sentence in the second paragraph really give away the tone. The first sentence begins with “ the drama begins to unfold…” There is not really any drama because it is just a corpse, and there should not be humor when dealing with death.
Mitford goes into so much grisly detail in analyzing the process of embalming and restoration to help enlighten the audience. For example, it helps to enlighten many of us who are unaware of the process that takes place to restore the corpses for viewing. Paragraphs eleven to the end go into depth the process from restoring the corpse to burying it.
The effect of calling the corpse “Mr. Jones” is to make it personal. In paragraph seven
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Starting from paragraph one and ending on twenty-seven, Mitford kept all of the details in order. Putting the details in order helps the audience understand, step-by-step, what happens, and it helps make sense of what is going on when. The audience knows what and how the embalmers are doing the job.
Mitford is writing to a audience ignorant to embalming. Mitford is not writing to professional morticians because she is explaining things that she would not have to explain if she were talking to a professional. The author in paragraph twenty explains with great detail how to put “Mr. Jones” into the casket. A professional would already know how to lay a corpse in a casket, but a novice like most people would not know the proper way to do so.
“The earlier this is done, the better, for every hour that elapses between death and embalming will add to the problems and complications encountered…”This shows how imperative it is to embalm someone quickly so that the corpse will not rot, and the corpse will be preserved long enough for the funeral. If it is not done quickly enough the body will start to
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