Jessica Mitford Accepting Death Analysis

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Death is a fundamental aspect of life that no one can escape. Everyone will eventually familiarize themselves with the concept of mortality through the passing of a family member, friend, or celebrity. Some find peace with it, others do not care, but the rest struggle to break from an existential crisis and feel burdened with the thought of their inevitable death. There are many options in which a corpse can be dealt, including burial and cremation, depending on the culture. Something unique to North American culture is the tradition of preserving corpses in order to exhibit them at funerals prior to burial, also referred to as embalming. Jessica Mitford, an English author and journalist, expresses profound disapproval of this practice in her …show more content…
She recognizes a contradiction where embalming is still highly mysterious in a place where “Satisfaction of curiosity about almost all materials is a national pastime” (Mitford 311). Nonetheless, this inconsistency overlooks the fact that most Americans are incredibly uncomfortable and uninterested with the death and all. Families have no problem with embalming because they are blissfully ignorant of what occurs behind the curtain, something Mitford recognizes. What they possibly desire is a peaceful-looking shell of a loved one to which they can say a final goodbye to mitigate the grief, but the readers will certainly not understand because Mitford never incorporates the sentiments of an American. The one other person she quotes is an English woman living in San Francisco who claims that “[She] could never face another American funeral” after seeing her coworker in an open-casket (qtd. in Mitford 315). This is confirmation bias as Mitford tries to strengthen her points by using a person who comes from a similar background. Mitford is being critical of another culture’s tradition purely on her own opinions and of those alike, producing an unreliable example of propaganda. “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” is supposed to be a persuasive essay, but the author incorporates the features of descriptive writing to underhandedly sway readers towards

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