The Whole Death Catalog

Words: 756
Pages: 4

Death is a fact of life. Every human who lives, will die. The when, where, why, and how that death occurs is unknown. Chapter 1 of The Whole Death Catalog examines how death is defined, view, and handled throughout history and across cultures. Our current definitions and ways of dealing with death in modern America are unlike any from the past. Technological advancements, the media, and the funeral business have caused us to become further removed from death than any generation in the past, and has influenced the way we treat death as a culture. Technological advancements have made death increasingly hard to define. In the book, as well as in my Perceptions of Death class, the historical definition of the cessation of breathing and heartbeat …show more content…
Machines that keep people breathing and blood flowing despite them not having the ability to on their own makes this complicated. Is a person dead if they cannot breathe or their heart is not beating unassisted? Or is “death” when not even the finest machinery can keep oxygen and blood flowing? Or is death defined by lack of brain function? And, if so, what constitutes the minimal amount of brain function to be considered alive? The line between life and death is no longer clearly drawn in the sand. For me personally, I think the definition of death is situational. If I am an elderly woman and one day I stop breathing and my heart stops, then I accept that as my death. If I am twenty-five and healthy and my heart stops in the middle of the grocery store, then I do not accept the cessation of heartbeat as my death. In defining death, I think it is more about the