The Book Thief is about the story of Liesel Meminger, as her story is narrated by death itself. (Creepy, right?) 1939, Liesel and her brother Werner, travel to a town called Molching, located outside of Munich, Germany. On their train ride, Werner dies of a mysterious illness with something to do with poverty, poor living condition, and poor medical attention. Before arriving to Molching, Liesel attends her poor brother’s funeral in a small snowy graveyard. While attending, a book falls from a young gravedigger’s coat titled The Grave Digger’s Handbook. The only problem is, Liesel doesn’t understand how to
Identified by the majority as "funeral directors” in America, these specialists have transformed the twentieth-century experience of death and body disposal. On the flip side though, this does not mean that they have made things any easier.
O’Brien culminates The Things They Carried with “The Lives of the Dead,” which includes a story about a girl named Linda that is at first seemingly unrelated to the overall plot. O’Brien discusses the story of Linda, a girl who he fell in love with in elementary school who succumbed to cancer. He had a deep connection with her, and found himself relishing sleep so he could dream endlessly about Linda. O’Brien then connects this story to those revolving the occurrences of Vietnam. He reveals yet another purpose of telling war stories: not to simply show readers what war in Vietnam was like, but to “revive…that which is absolute and unchanging” (O’Brien 224). Telling war stories serves as a way of “making the dead seem not quite so dead” (O’Brien
In this paper, we will discuss the different death rituals performed in different cultures. We view death rituals from Native Americans, Africans, those of the Chinese decent, and endocannibalism from the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea. Death is universal to all people in every culture. Responses to how one deals with death and dying differ greatly. Death rituals are usually based on beliefs. This can come from religion, history, language, and art.
Burying individuals have impacted the people of ancient Hawaiians greatly. As in other cultures, recognizing a deceased person played a key role in the ancient society, whether it was a strong leader or a stranger. This was no different for the Hawaiians, as death was a matter not taken lightly. Even though emotion is common while observing burial, native Hawaiian had taken it to another level. “Relatives or close ones to the deceased person would tear away hair, knock out teeth with a stone, scar their skin, or even cut off an ear, especially if the high chief had passed” (Fullard-Leo). However, Hawaiians also saw a significance when a relative had been
Every individual experiences the act of death, and most persons experience the death of someone they know of. Whether family, kin, or someone infamous, the living deal with the process of dying. Anthropology seeks to understand the universal process of death ritual and how different cultures deal with death differently. An anthropologist can extract social values of a given culture, past or present, from how death ceremony is practiced. Such values could be regarding political hierarchy or an individual’s status in a society, and about a culture’s spiritual or religious faith. By exploring death ceremony in ancient Egypt, contemporary Hindu death practice in India, and current North American funerary rites, it can be illustrated that
At some point in our lives, we all come to realize that death is a part of life. Cultural diversity provides a wide variety of lifestyles and traditions for each of the unique groups of people in our world. Within these different cultures, the rituals associated with death and burial can also be uniquely diverse. Many consider ritualistic traditions that differ from their own to be somewhat strange and often perceive them as unnatural. A prime example would be the burial rituals of the Native American people.
Honoring your friend’s last request was an important aspect of the poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee.” The narrator of the poem seems to feel obligated to keep his promise to Sam McGee by cremating his remains. Even though finding a way to fulfill his friend’s request proved to be extremely difficult and very dangerous, the narrator feels like he has to follow Sam McGee’s wish.
This paper will look at existing organizations and programs that provide parent home visits for infant and child loss in culturally diverse populated areas in the United States. These programs generally do not encompass grief recovery for the Native American community. As social workers and providers of these services, it is important to understand this cultural group, know their rituals and beliefs surrounding death and the burial of their dead, and to be open to changes that might be needed within their programs to address the needs of the Native American community. This paper will address the Native American beliefs on death, their rituals
When an individual dies, their death can greatly impact the loved ones they leave behind. Each mourner may feel and perceive the death differently from one another, but one common factor that can influence the mourner’s beliefs, values, and views about a person’s death is their culture. Their culture can regulate the way the mourner copes with the death of a loved one, what they do with the physical deceased body, and how they may honor the dead afterwards (Cartaret, 2011). For me, my culture is relatively related to the Catholic, Hispanic American culture, which is a broad and subjective category, but it is what I believe that guides my views towards life and death. I have additionally chosen to learn about the cultural practices of Hinduism of Indians on death
No one can escape death. It’s one of so few unavoidable certainties in our lives and has held an important position in every human culture since time immemorial. Of course, this position has is different from culture to culture, and shifts over time. This is particularly evident in western culture. The shift is discussed at length in two essays: “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” by Jessica Mitford, and ‘The Fear of Dying’ by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross. Both explore different aspects of these themes – Mitford’s essay being deconstruction of a the uniquely North American process of embalming, and Kübler-Ross’ being an indictment of the clinical depersonalization of contemporary western attitudes toward death. Each utilize many different tools as writers, such as rhetorical modes. Rhetorical modes they share are exemplification, description, and compare-and-contrast.
African culture demonstrates a strong connection with deceased person, and believes that only a correct burial will bring a dead person peace. People in Africa strongly believe in spiritual life, thus their main goal during burial ceremonies is to address a spirit of a deceased person. An African funeral begins with removal of the body from home, which is done through a previously made hole in the wall of the home. Africans remove a dead body through the hole, instead of a door, to confuse a spirit and make sure that a spirit of a deceased person will not return back home, as a hole in the wall is immediately closed after removal of the body. In effort to confuse a spirit even more, they place thorns and sticks in a zigzag pattern along the way as body being taken to the place of burial.
The narrator (Death) is telling the story in 1st person. She thinks hard about the line of work she is in because she takes notes about everything around her, Like on page four when she is wondering “What color will everything be at that moment when I come for you? What will the sky be saying?”. She sees life in color because of the line of work she is in, it helps her to relax and cope.
Today the society is looking for ways to ease life and to find solutions for problems which oppress our lives and make it hard to live through. Because of many reasons, the traditional burials in this century are becoming a problem. (Prothero,2001). The fact that they cover a lot of land to build cemeteries and other things that are attached to these traditional burials is enough for us to search for a practical solution. About a century ago the term "cremation" was unknown to many people. It is believed that it began to be practiced during the early Stone Age and still exists today. Since that time cremations have been made all
Amy is having difficulty with depression as well. She is unable to move to the last stage of grief, acceptance, until then she will be stuck in the same stage, reliving the same emotions over and over until she is able to cope with the feelings that were aroused