Comparing At the Morgue by Helen Garner and Basics Training by Deborah Hope

518 Words2 Pages

Comparing At the Morgue by Helen Garner and Basics Training by Deborah Hope

AT THE MORGUE – Helen Garner, True Stories 1996
This article is written in the first person's point of view. The style is informal, almost chatty in spite of the morbid topic it deals with. The author uses this style to tell the reader a story, like telling a friend an experience. The author's feelings and thoughts are freely expressed. This helps to put the reader into the author's shoes, to see through her eyes and feel through her heart.
This article is a narrative. It does not aim to analyse the topic. It describes the author's experiences at the mortuary and the resulting disturbing thoughts she had.
Descriptive language is used to give graphic details. This paints vivid mental pictures in the reader's mind. It contributes to the feeling of personal involvement of the reader. All the author's observations are described in detail. Words used are simple yet effective.
The article was an enjoyment to read. It provides an insider's view of what goes on in the mortuary, where not many people can access. It deals with a subject which people do not usually seek information on but are nonetheless intrigued by. The style lessens the formality of the subject, which makes it less scary to deal with. The descriptive language is effectively used. The expression of the author's feeling and thoughts encourages empathy from the reader with the author.

BASICS TRAINING – Deborah Hope, The Au...

Show More
Related

  • Unveiling Linda Pastan

    242 Words  | 1 Pages

        In the poem “Unveiling” by Linda Pastan, the speaker's point of view is from an older woman who is walking through a cemetery and admiring her deceased family members. Pastan uses allusion, enjambment and imagery to display to the reader what the speaker is feeling and thinking, as she explores her family members’ graves.

    Read More

  • Fear Of Mortality In The Skeleton, By Ray Bradbury

    535 Words  | 2 Pages

    So if I told you there is a skeleton in your body which represents death would you believe it? In Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Skeleton”, the theme of self-destructive obsession, and fear of mortality is developed through the use of symbolism, imagery, and allusion, in which will further explain the opening sentence of this thesis

    Read More

  • Review of Bob Deits's Life After Loss

    1171 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sadly, life is a terminal illness, and dying is a natural part of life. Deits pulls no punches as he introduces the topic of grief with the reminder that life’s not fair. This is a concept that most of us come to understand early in life, but when we’re confronted by great loss directly, this lesson is easily forgotten. Deits compassionately acknowledges that grief hurts and that to deny the pain is to postpone the inevitable. He continues that loss and grief can be big or small and that the period of mourning afterward can be an unknowable factor early on. This early assessment of grief reminded me of Prochaska and DiClemente’s stages of change, and how the process of change generally follows a specific path.

    Read More

  • Paul Santilli The Spider Analysis

    534 Words  | 2 Pages

    Santilli explains horror as something beyond death: a loss of freedom and control. As he continues to say, “What remains after death is the corpse itself, an ineluctable remainder of the act, representing the triumph of being over the subject’s free negation” (183). The act of the killing will always be present even after a while, Richard knows how the other men ended up, hanging dead yet he takes on the mystery.

    Read More

  • Creative Writing: A Parent's Funeral

    1257 Words  | 3 Pages

    The funeral was supposed to be a family affair. She had not wanted to invite so many people, most of them strangers to her, to be there at the moment she said goodbye. Yet, she was not the only person who had a right to his last moments above the earth, it seemed. Everyone, from the family who knew nothing of the anguish he had suffered in his last years, to the colleagues who saw him every day but hadn’t actually seen him, to the long-lost friends and passing acquaintances who were surprised to find that he was married, let alone dead, wanted to have a last chance to gaze upon him in his open coffin and say goodbye.

    Read More

  • A Body’s Dignity of a Maternal Brain Dead Mother

    889 Words  | 2 Pages

    “In most human society's death is an extremely important cultural and social phenomenon, sometimes more important than birth” (Ohnuki-Tierney, Angrosino, & Daar et al. 1994). In the United States of America, when a body dies it is cherished, mourned over, and given respect by the ones that knew the person. It is sent to the morgue and from there the family decides how the body should be buried or cremated based on...

    Read More

  • George Bernard Shaw and His Short Story About the Cremation of The Narrator's Mother

    761 Words  | 2 Pages

    begins to wonder exactly what happens when one is cremated. This mood of awe is

    Read More

  • Death's Acre Summary

    1023 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this book, Dr. Bass takes us behing the scenes of the Body Farm. An engaging storyteller, he reveals his hardest and best cases. While this book tells about Bass’s life, it is centered around the Body Farm itself because it tells of how it was started. This book is very informative and it tells you that even though it is a dead body, it can still tell many tales and it can mean a lot to history, This book shows just how the dead can come to

    Read More

  • Edgar Allan Poes The Premature Burial

    434 Words  | 1 Pages

    The writing style of Edgar Allan Poe shows the writer to be of a dark nature. In this story, he focuses on his fascination of being buried alive. He quotes, “To be buried alive is, beyond question, the most terrific of these [ghastly] extremes which has ever fallen to the lot of mere mortality.” page 58 paragraph 3. The dark nature is reflected in this quote, showing the supernatural side of Poe which is reflected in his writing and is also a characteristic of Romanticism. Poe uses much detail, as shown in this passage, “The face assumed the usual pinched and sunken outline. The lips were of the usual marble pallor. The eyes were lusterless. There was no warmth. Pulsation had ceased. For three days the body was preserved unburied, during which it had acquired a stony rigidity.” page 59 paragraph 2. The descriptive nature of this writing paints a vivid picture that intrigues the reader to use their imagination and visualize the scene presented in the text. This use of imagery ties with aspects of Romanticism because of the nature of the descriptions Poe uses. Describing the physical features of one who seems dead is a horrifying perspective as not many people thing about the aspects of death.

    Read More

  • Improving End-of-Life Care in The United States

    2060 Words  | 5 Pages

    Deaths were a form of social event, when families and loved ones would gather around the bed of the dying, offering emotional support and comfort. Myth, religion, and tradition would combine to give the event deeper meaning and ease the transition for all involved. The one who was dying was confident in knowing what lay behind the veil of death, thanks to religious faith or tradition. His or her community held fast to the sense of community, drawing strength from social ties and beliefs. (“Taboos and Social Stigma - Rituals, Body, Life, History, Time, Person, Human, Traditional Views of Death Give Way to New Perceptions" 1)

    Read More

  • Behind The Formaldehyde Curtain Analysis

    1066 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the essay “On the Fear of Death” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross focuses on dying and the effects it has on children as well as those who are dying, while in Jessica Mitford’s “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” focuses more on the after fact when the deceased is being prepared of their last appearance. Both authors, point out that the current attitude toward death is to simply cover it up. A successful funeral is when the deceased looks “Lyf Lyk” in Mitford’s Essay, but in Kubler-Ross’ it is dying at a peace with oneself, no IVs attached. Both authors feel that the current views of death is dehumanizing. Mitford points this out with the allusion that the funeral parlors are a theatrical play, while Kubler-Ross comments “I think there are many reasons

    Read More

  • Stiff Chapter Summary

    1034 Words  | 3 Pages

    Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach is a fascinating and compelling novel that explores the lives of human bodies after we have left them. In Stiff, Mary Roach discusses the major biological concepts of human cadavers and reveals that there are more to human cadavers than just being “dead.” The author entices the reader throughout the novel from the beneficial but strange uses of human cadavers to the history of body snatching and crucifixion experiments.

    Read More

  • Mortuary Science

    1709 Words  | 4 Pages

    Imagine yourself as a mortician, certified as an embalmer, retort operator, funeral director, and a funeral cosmetologist. You get a call late at night, there’s been a terrible accident and someone has died. You arrive at the hospital and are directed to a small room where the body of the deceased is being held. There’s blood all over the sheets as the doctor and coronary assistant zip up the body bag and inform you the body was badly mangled in a car accident, which is going to make reconstructing the deceased very difficult. Your assistant puts the body on the stretcher and loads it into the hearse while you talk to the wife of the deceased man. She tells you they plan to have a funeral so you give her your card and a reassuring word before leaving the hospital and driving back to the funeral home. Now your job begins, not only will you have to reconstruct this man’s disfigured body, but you must meet with the family, discuss funeral arrangements, and deal with the family’s emotional trauma that comes with losing a loved one. Although working in the funeral business can be emotionally draining, it’s a satisfying feeling to see mourning families able to say goodbye to their loved ones. Despite the fact that working so closely with the deceased can be chilling, Mortuary science can be a thrilling field to work in.

    Read More

  • Greek Mythology in Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

    1953 Words  | 4 Pages

    “…so distinctly black, black as only coffins can be-it conjures up hush-hush criminal adventures in the rippling night and, even more, death itself: the bier, the obscure obsequies, the final, silent journey.”(Mann 2004 pp. 36)

    Read More

  • Philosophy of Death According to Marcus Aurelius

    625 Words  | 2 Pages

    Most people view death as an evil force set out against all of humanity. In fact, in our present culture, the personification of death, the grim reaper, is one ...

    Read More

More about Comparing At the Morgue by Helen Garner and Basics Training by Deborah Hope

Open Document