HW 52 - Third Third of the COTD Book

There are religious funeral packages that are portrayed to have less theatrical glamour but broken down they still have their own emotional protection system and are therefore no different from an average funeral. The funeral business is getting sucker punched by medical technologies; people simply aren’t dying fast enough. When they do die their families think they that their fantasy funeral is attainable but once they see that the brochure cover is really patchy spots of grass they tend to change what they want. Whatever your beliefs are no matter what kind of funeral you have once you’re dead you will become part of the whole. Fulfilling our interpretation of the dead person’s wishes makes us feel at peace with them, as if paying them back for their life. Although that statement has restraints as a society we do the fastest process that is also the most socially acceptable. 

"For most people cemeteries and funeral homes are invisible just like old folks homes and landfills: blind spots" (Jokinen 209).

"You cant mark the sea like you mark the land, it wont let you, and if it matters to know where your dead are, the sea responds with a wet salty question mark" (Jokinen 230).

"this...might be the future of funeral trade, change the way people understand death. like religion used to do" (Jokinen 248).

Throughout the third third of Curtains Tom Jokinen realizes that his that he can step away from his job at any point but what hes experiencing is the entirety of other peoples lives. I think hearing about the death care industry from Tom's point of view became a little redundant and the most interesting sentences were thoughts of other people who have different perspectives on care of the dead. Much like the food unit people want the fastest, laziest, cheapest, least isolating product/outcome. An example of this is cutting corners when raising cattle by feeding them cheap corn and not teaching the factory workers how to properly butcher an animal because that would cost too much money. As described in Curtains most costumers prefer something cheap but expensive enough so they don't have the emotional burden of guilt. The corners cut in the funeral business are the emotional needs of the living customers. I think as Sean Dockray describes on page 248 the only solution to the Broadway funeral is to make funerals an emotional transformation.