A recent article in the Sunday New York Times brought international attention to a trend in American funerals: the display of the deceased in a standing or sitting position,often accompanied by props. While photographic images of the dead, popular in this country in the 19th and early 20th centuries, are familiar to many—and have even been recently reintroduced as remembrances for parents of dead infants—the idea of a dead body sitting at a table (or on a motorcycle) at a funeral seems disconcerting at best. I hope to examine this phenomenon in various contexts: as an extreme but logical extension of the common practice of preparing the body for viewing by embalming, dressing, and placing it in a casket; as another point in the transformation of the traditional funeral to a “celebration of life” replete with audio and video images of the deceased, which now may be held in funeral home spaces set up to look like living rooms or cozy cafes; and as an outgrowth of the communal, exaggerated, and extended public grieving for celebrities and victims of violence. I would also like to examine how widespread this phenomenon is likely to become, and whether the presence of the displayed body helps or hinders the grieving process—is it a denial of death or a symbolic means of connecting the dead to the living by making the deceased a “participant” in his or her own commemoration?
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About the presenterPamela Wood Payne
Pamela Payne is an assistant professor of English at Palm Beach Atlantic University.