Terminal illnesses, such as AIDs, have imposed Americans to make important choices and certain decisions that relate to the way that each person would like to face death and the dying process. .
A-"One of the most persuasive indicants of acceptance is provided by the simple fact that research and discussion on the topic of death are now being conducted openly, without the fear of condemnation or reprisal." (55).
D-"the enormous media interest in the experience of AIDs in the form of confessional accounts of aware, heroic dying."(126).
1) Apparently Mal's family has already made plans on what to do with him once he dies, but he is not concerned with anything to do with a funeral. He wishes to be cremated and not be concerned with him being dead, but more about the time he is still alive yet dying. .
American society seems to be more and more concerned with making funerals a main attraction of someone's death. Even though it has become communized in culture, some people wish not to have that attachment with the community and their death to be the center of attention, due to being ashamed of the way that they die, such as AIDs. Even though AIDs has become a more "normal" terminal illness than it was a decade ago, some communities of people don't find it acceptable. .
Life insurance:.
A-"People do not buy auto insurance if they own no cars and , similarly, they probably would not buy life insurance if they had no belief in the fact they will die."(54).
D-"life insurance is the purest expression of the modern approach to the risk of death" (84).
D-an acknowledgement rather than a denial of death, and can be understood as a modern attitude towards ones own death and a positive act of control.(85).
D-religious prohibition against the introduction of life insurance in the nineteenth century American is a demonstrator of a new mentality of the sacred-death. (85).
2) Mal's mother, Lucinda, is a Catholic, and does not agree with his choice to not receive hospice care.