Buffy The Vampire Slayer Analysis

I chose to do my paper on, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, specifically the episode entitled “The Body”. In this episode; Buffy comes home to find her mother, Joyce, passed out on their couch in the living room. She calls out to her mother and tries unsuccessfully to rouse her. When this doesn’t work, she immediately gets on the phone and calls 911. The 911 operator goes through the steps of CPR with her, while directing an ambulance to her location, Buffy in turn tries to get her mother to start breathing. She does this until she hears a crack, to which the 911 operator tells her may be one of her mothers’ ribs. Upon hearing this Buffy finally states that her mother feels cold, to which the operator instructs her not to touch “the body”. A phrase …show more content…
Some are in death denial and refuse to believe that she is really gone, and go as far to blame the doctors for what happened. They believe that since science and medicine are so advanced that there should have been some way to stop this from happening. This illustrates the idea that the health care system is around for preservation of life and that they should somehow be able to cheat death. Some are in the depression stage, where they cannot even function. However, they all end up meeting at the morgue and try to ultimately make Buffy and her sister Dawn know that they are there for them, saying all the appropriate things that we learn from childhood, such as “I’m sorry for your less, I’m here for you, There’s nothing anyone could have done, and at least she didn’t suffer.” Buffy’s younger sister Dawn, seems to take it the worst, since she was not there with her mom when it happened. She isn’t representing any of the common reactions to death and does not fully believe that her mother could really be dead and refuses to believe it until she is able to see the body, even when the coroner tells her how and why she died. She seems unable to let her emotions come out. Dawn ends up sneaking into the morgue because of this but, luckily Buffy ends up following her sister to stop her from looking at the body. Unfortunately an intense action scene with a vampire proceeds to take place and the sheet covering Joyce’s body comes off. Both the girls are in shock to see this, but it does do some good as Dawn finally seems to accept that her mother is actually dead. She does not disagree when Buffy states “That’s not her, she’s gone” all she says in reply is “Where’d she go?” A question that all of us wonder in our society when we die and something that we can never know until it