The Untasteful Truth

            
             Question #1 on Meaning: What was your emotional response to this essay? Can you analyze your feelings?.
             I was angered at the fact I was assigned to read Jessica Mitford's Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain. I take death very seriously and believe it should be sacred, respected and cherished. In my opinion, the way Mitford portrayed death in the story was untasteful and its special ness was not utilized. In all reality, I think any shred of deaths dignity was thrown out the window. .
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             I was still upset for days after reading this story until our last in-class discussion. We were assigned to free write in our journals and discuss aloud with the class our views on death. This infuriated me. When I discovered that I couldn't even share my personal thoughts on the topic of death, I began to think that possibly it wasn't the story that I was truly angry about. Maybe it was an insecurity of my own that I have about death. .
             Losing a special person in your life is very hard. When my grandmother passed away, I closed up all emotions and wasn't able to express any feelings. Obviously to this day, I am still closed up about the topic. I know I am not the only person in the world that undergoes the same emotions about death. But I have never met anyone that feels my pain to the extreme like I do. When the topic of death is brought up, I feel like the world is picking on me. .
             After reading Mitford's Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain, I felt absolute pure and utter disgust within myself. The vulgar and crude stomach turning vocabulary was almost more then I could handle. I found I was feeling queasy and had to stop and take deep breaths in order to be able to continue on with the story. The analysis was most defiantly a painstaking one. .
             In a way, it wasn't completely the story that made me upset. But my feelings are still strongly against Mitford choice topic, and the way she portrayed it that bothered me.