Stiff: The Curious Lives Of Human Cadavers

Death, it is complex yet simple at the same time. People view the dead and the dying in different ways. While reading the two books for the class I was given a look into two very different viewpoints on death. Elizabeth Kubler- Ross examines the grieving stages showing the more sentimental side of death in her book “On Death and Dying”. Then on a completely different spectrum, there is Mary Roach, who talks about decaying corpses and facelifts on the deceased. She takes the dead and puts an interesting comedic twist to the saddening truth of death in her book “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers”. I don't want to focus just on the comparing and contrast of these two books but as well, the knowledge I have gained about death itself. Though these books and my current knowledge have numerous differences, they have one common factor, that death is saddening and a hard circumstance to deal with. …show more content…
In her writing, she is very descriptive in the way people handle their emotions when working with the deceased and having to change their body from what it had been before death. In the first chapter she talks about attending a seminar on facelifts where they work with human heads to have a more realistic operation experience. The doctors attending the seminar treat the cadaver heads with the utmost respect, yet, many feel as if they are being disrespectful to them for a number of reasons. Roach spins death on the edge and brings a new perspective to it because she is not afraid to show the many aspects of what people are like after death. I believe that in a way this relates to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's book because she as well puts a different spin on the meaning of death by showing how we grieve a