The Death Of The Funeral Business Analysis

As earlier stated, over the years people have become intact with technology thus society adapted to technology in their lives, making their lives easier. “Our use of the Net will only grow, and its impact on us will only strengthen, as it becomes even more present in our lives.” (92) The

Living in the technology age our constant need for technology and the internet has changed everything about a person’s daily life. Technology has replaced the ability for deep, meaningful thought and even the need for face-to-face human interaction. Today people don’t have to put in a lot of work in order to find information they are looking for. They can find it easily at the touch of their fingers on the internet. They can even have relationships on the internet.

Kayla Burnett Professor Maharaj October 7, 2014 Analysis Renowned journalist, Jessica Mitford, in her essay, “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain”, describes in great detail the practices of embalming and the various procedures the body goes through after death in America. Mitford’s purpose for writing this essay is to explore what exactly happens behind the scenes in a funeral home, which is kept secret in our society. In her essay, Mitford clearly opposes the process of embalming, a regular practice at funeral homes in America, that can happen without any consent of the dead person’s family. Throughout the essay, Mitford voices her opposition toward the process of embalming, arguing the legality of the process of embalming, and the way American

However, with work only being a temporary fix that makes the “day go by faster,” there is room for less harmful and more productive methods of coping. Like working, technology is another distraction people turn to when bereaved. Such technology to be considered can be social media, video games, and television. The Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin tells about a Virginia Tech student who found comfort and distraction in social media. She felt that when she was having a hard time she would go onto one of her social media sites and “‘feel just a little more connected to people’”(Vicary and Fraley).

Mitford raises questions regarding the legality behind the embalmment process and goes into the gory aspects of what goes on in the backrooms of funeral groups nationwide. Additionally, “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” presents a compelling and unnerving argument, against the perpetuation of the commercialism of death, and the funeral industry in North America. Every year without exception, Americans willingly shovel millions of dollars into the market of embalmment, and presenting the dead. The funeral industry has become a commercial venture, in

“The Internet, an immeasurably powerful computing system, is subsuming most of our other intellectual technologies. It’s becoming our map and our clock, our printing press and our typewriter, our calculator and our telephone, and our radio and TV” (Car). Still the internet isn’t becoming everything. The internet doesn’t give us access to print out our clothing or our food and beverages. We physically have to go out and get it ourselves, or order these online through the Internet.

Nicholas Carr in The Shallows (2010) asserts that the internet is changing the very way people live today. Carr supports this assertion by providing key points of how the Internet changed so much like how he did in this quote “With the exception of alphabets and number systems, the Net may well be the single most powerful mind-altering technology that has ever come into general use. At the very least, it’s the most powerful that has come along since the book” (Carr, 2010, pg.118). The writer concludes that everyday life in the modern age includes the use of the Internet. The writer establishes a direct tone to readers that the way people think is changing due to the Internet.

But nobody knows what’s going on inside the preparation room, all they see is their deceased relative, good as new, when they walk by the open casket during the funeral. Mitford depicts the American funeral industry’s manipulation of death throughout the essay with either blatant or thinly-veiled verbal irony. In the last paragraph, Mitford states that the funeral director has put on a “well-oiled performance" where "the concept of death played no part whatsoever”, unless providing it was “inconsiderately mentioned” by the funeral conductors. This is extremely ironic because a funeral is supposed to revolved around death, and this makes us think about funerals and the embalmment process in a way that we usually don’t. These processes takes away the cruelty and brutality of death and make it seem trivial while making our deceased relatives life-like, with pink toned skin and a smile on their face, and death is not like that at all.

In fact, people are still able to bond using technology, it can help people to keep in touch, and it can be used to help people cherish what is important to them. As long as humans do not abuse it, electronics can simply be used as a new way to interact with one another. Unlike the outcomes of “The Veldt” and “The Pedestrian”, technology does not have to consume or ruin lives. People should encourage one another to use the modern items at their disposal without uninformed cynics claiming that they are living life

Nicholas Carr, What the Internet is doing to Our Brains The Shallows (2010) asserts that, “The price we pay to assume technology’s power is alienation.” He supports this assertion by saying, “They both ultimately achieve their mental and behavioral effects by shaping the synaptic organization of the brain.” Also by, “ We long to keep it activated.” The writer concludes in order for people to improve their thoughts, they will have to cope with the new technology and how they think. Carr believes that technology is taking over how people interact with each other.

Thesis: In Robert Frosts “Home Burial” the tone of sadness is conveyed with the themes of Language/Communication, Gender, and Death contribute to the authors word choice and order, visual imagery and

Mitford takes note that “not one in ten thousand has an idea of what actually takes place” (310) and there is so much more beneath the surface of things. Mitford also uses oxymorons such as, “he has done everything in his power to make the funeral a real pleasure for everybody” (314). It’s clear that a funeral isn’t a “pleasure”, it’s an incredibly sad experience (for most people) and it just goes to show the depth Mitford will go to portray her aggressive opinions. As Mitford continues to describe the shocking details about embalming she gets into a routine and systematically gives us disconcerting imagery every other paragraph, such as, a corpse “whose mouth had been sewn together” (312). Mitford’s style is informative and she doesn’t shy away from being brutally open by using unsettling imagery, which once again makes her case even

Death, something we as humans will have to inevitably face, whether we accept it or not. It is due to that mortality that we have a much greater appreciation for life. Though when we have to eventually tell our loved ones farewell and our flame withers away, there is one more thing that needs to be done; the funeral. This, of course, isn’t something out of the ordinary for us since we reside in the U.S. where it is quite common, but there are a plethora of other civilizations that handle funerals much differently than us. Civilizations like the ancient Egypt, where they handle it with mummification.

Death plays an important part in everyday life, in the way life moves on, changes, and improves, but in terms of ourselves and our relationship with death, it has become more of a taboo subject. (Needs something here?) The concept of death itself changing as its significance (in how it is viewed from the Victorian era to the present day) reveals how the beautification of death in its interpretation within post – mortem photography, in comparison to how modern day photographers challenge the view of the extraordinary image of death as it is seen today, in which society will not view death as anything but a subject to be avoided due to the way it has become twisted into something of an unspoken topic that would more likely be feared in the modern era rather than embraced. Post – mortem photography became

We all use it. Whether it is a text to your significant other, a hard work day on the job, a quick drive to the store, even something as simple as going to church, no matter where we are we always seem to be using technology. Technology is a growing issue with each passing day and even though there are positive effects it also has its negative side. It affects the things we do such as communication and playing, but most importantly affects our brain with our daily thought process. Today, Im going to inform you on how technology has affected you and your daily lifestyle habits.