Jessica Mitford, the author of “The Story of Service”, writes about the business of embalming and open casket funerals. Within the chapter, she explains how the industry often takes advantage of the grief-stricken customers. The funeral homes over-charge for the service, taking into account simple things like bookkeeping, and ‘the idle time of employees is figured in and protracted as part of “man hours” (Mitford 42). Also, due to the process of embalming being the cultural norm in America, funeral directors go ahead and embalm everybody that comes in, even if they don’t have permission from the family or the deceased first. In most other processes to dead bodies like an autopsy or cremation, this is not the standard procedure, and they would need permission before doing anything to the body. The only time they ask for permission is when they need to charge for the procedure.
Most of the procedure is not catering to the deceased, but to the family members who don’t want to face the gruesome details of death. Many people that allow their loved ones to be treated don’t even know what the procedure entails. Mitford suspects this ignorance might be because the funeral directors might not want the public to know about the details of the procedure. She asks if “it is possible he fears that the public information about embalming might lead patrons to wonder if they really want this service?” (Mitford 45). Embalming is the farthest a body can be from a natural burial. They pump chemicals into the decaying corpse, sometimes even using plaster to maintain the body’s shape. They alter the body to appear more alive and appealing, sewing the mouth into a slight smile “for a more pleasant expression” (Mitford 46), and they close the eyes with eye cement to keep up with the appearance of peaceful resting. Their rotting insides are replaces with cavity fluid, and the skin has to be treated to make sure it isn’t damaged from the chemicals they apply to the body. With so many chemicals, it’s like a Theseus’ ship scenario. It is even still the person you know anymore, when everything about their body has been changed?
It is very reflective of our society that the norm for death is to completely cover all the gruesome details. The corpse still needs to conform to society’s beauty standards, even after their dead. The funeral directors won’t even talk about death, even if they are working with the matter every day. They conceal it by using gadgets in every step of the process to minimize human contact. They even change their regularly used vocabulary to be more appealing terms, like referring to ‘death certificate’ as ‘vital statistics form’. Clearly, Mitford creates a narrative that depicts the funeral industry as a strange tradition that we take for granted, perpetuated by the funeral directors that seek profit.
