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Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death

Jessica Mitford, The American Way of Death

Read The American Way of Death and check your comprehension by answering the following questions. Then “submit” your work.

1. What is Mitford's major complaint about the funeral industry?

Most people would prefer to have more lavish funerals than the funeral home is willing to provide.

Funerals are morbid and not helpful to grieving survivors.

Funerals have become another status symbol in America's commercial culture.

Funeral directors do not emphasize the environmental and economic benefits of cremation.

2. Prior to the twentieth-century, most American funerals were

attended only by immediate family.

happy events because belief in an afterlife was almost universal.

elaborate ceremonies similar to today's weddings.

stark and simple.

3. What is a “memory picture”?

a photograph of the deceased displayed at closed-casket funerals

a sketch of the deceased, drawn from memory, by a close relative or friend

the last glimpse of the deceased in an open casket

the photograph of the deceased which accompanies a newspaper obituary

4. In today's funeral homes, bodies are displayed in rooms known as

gateways.

slumber rooms.

casket rooms.

the morgue.

5. What event fueled a reexamination of the funeral industry by the American public?

a “behind the scenes” documentary aired on television

the publication of an article in the Saturday Evening Post

the arrest of a prominent funeral home director for fraud

the publication of a “tell-all” book by the president of a funeral supply company