The Unknown Country: Death in Australia, Britain and the USA

284 Pages·1997·34.512 MB·English

by  Kathy Charmaz, Glennys Howarth, Allan Kellehear (eds.)

THE UNKNOWN COUNTRY: DEATH IN AUSTRALIA,
BRITAIN AND THE USA
Also by Kathy Charmaz
lHE SOCIAL REALITY OF DEAlH, AGING, SELF AND
COMMUNITY (co-edited with Jaber F. Gubrium)
GOOD DAYS, BAD DAYS: The Self in Chronic I11ness and Time
Also by Glennys Howarth
LAST RITES
CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN lHE SOCIOLOGY OF DEAlH,
DYING AND DISPOSAL (co-edited with Peter C. Jupp)
lHE CHANGING FACE OF DEAlH: Historical Accounts of Death and
Disposal (co-edited with Peter C. Jupp)
Also by Allan Kellehear
DYING OF CANCER: The Final Year of Life
EXPERIENCES NEAR DEAlH: Beyond Medicine and Religion
The Unknown Country:
Death in Australia,
Britain and the USA
Edited by
Kathy Charmaz
Sonoma State University
USA
Glennys Howarth
University of Sussex
England
and
Allan Kellehear
La Trobe University
Australia
First published in Oreat Britain 1997 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills. Basingstoke. Hampshire R021 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-349-25595-5 ISBN 978-1-349-25593-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-25593-1
First published in the United States of America 1997 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division.
175 Fifth Avenue. New York. N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-16545-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The unknown country : death in Australia. Britain. and
the USA / edited by Kathy Charmaz. Olennys Howarth. Allan Kellehear.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-16545-1 (cloth)
I. Death-Social aspects-Cross-cultural studies. 2. Death
-Social aspects-Australia. 3. Death-Social aspects-Great
Britain. 4. Death-Social aspects-United States. I. Charmaz.
Kathy. 1939- . 11. Howarth. Olennys. III. Kellehear. Allan.
1955-
HQ1073.U55 1997
306.9-DC20 96-34794
CIP
Editorial matter and selection © Kathy Charmaz. Olennys Howarth and
Allan Kellehear 1997
Text © Macmillan Press Ltd 1997
Softcover reprint oftlte hardcover 1st edition 1997
All rights reserved. No reproduction. copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced. copied or transmitted save with
written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright. Designs and
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the Copyright Licensing Agency. 90 Tottenham Court Road. London WI P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in
accordance with the Copyright. Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97
Contents
Preface VB
Notes on the Contributors xi
1 Death in the Country of Matilda 1
Allan Kellehear and Ian Anderson
2 Secular, Savage and Solitary:
Death in Australian Painting 15
Lesley Fitzpatrick
3 Good Girls Die, Bad Girls Don't:
the Uses of the Dying Virgin in
Nineteenth-century Australian Fiction 31
Susan K. Martin
4 Prayers to Broken Stones: War and Death
in Australia 45
Phillip D 'Alton
5 The Legacy of Suicide:
the Impact of Suicide on Families 58
Mary Fraser
6 Death and the Great Australian Disaster 72
J3everley Raphael
7 Is there a British Way of Death? 84
Glennys Howarth
8 Women, Death and In Memoriam
Notices in a Local British Newspaper 98
Sheila Adams
9 The Social Construction of Funerals
in Britain 113
Bernard Smale
10 Emotional Reserve and the English
Way of Grief 127
Tony Walter
v
vi Contents
11 Why was England the First Country to
Popularize Cremation? 141
Peter C. JupP
12 The Public Construc';on of AIDS Deaths
in the United Kingdom 155
Neil Small
13 The American Ways of Death 169
Michael R. Leming and George E. Dickinson
14 You Never Have To Die!
On Mormons, NDEs, Cryonics and the
American Immortalist Ethos 184
Michael Kearl
15 Death, Dying and Bioethics:
Current Issues in the USA 198
Robert Bendiksen
16 Managing the Spectre of Death:
the War against Drug Use and AIDS
in America 213
Judith A. Levy and Daniel J. Amick
17 Grief and Loss of Self
Kathy Charmaz 229
18 Diversity in Universality: Dying,
Death and Grief 242
Donald P. Irish
Index 257
Preface
Death is less the 'undiscovered country' than it is the un
known one. We know death comes for us. But that univer
sal circumstance covers a great diversity of meanings and it
is often difficult to know what these diverse meanings might
be for different people. But it is not all chaos and diversity,
with no discernible patterns of meaning. On the other hand,
the idea that attitudes and experiences of death can be
characterized in some collective notion of 'Western attitudes'
deserves some qualification, even critical scrutiny.
There has also been a preponderance of literature which
has viewed death primarily from a medical perspective,
discussing death in terms of euthanasia, palliative care, medical
disclosure or the definitions of death itself. And here, too,
we witness much of this style of discussion glossing over the
many ways in which particular cultures, traditions and his
tories have shaped our national experience, knowledge,
awareness and responses to mortality.
In this volume our aim is to understand the experience
of death, that great 'unknown country', by beginning an
analysis of the experiences of death within the specific cul
tures in which it appears. How do countries such as Australia,
Britain or the United States shape the personal experiences
of death for their citizens? What are the similarities and
the differences in the way each of these cultures construct
their particular understandings of death?
We provide this analysis by asking six or seven social science
writers to discuss their view of some of the major national
meanings of death in their respective countries. So much of
our national understandings of death have been stereotyped,
and the unique concerns of each country have often been
overshadowed or lost in the globalized medical discussion of
death. Australia's experience of death is assumed to be merely
derivative of its British origins as a colony. America's experience
of death is assumed to be well-characterized by its expressive
and grandiose style, while the British are frequently assumed
to be the quintessentially reserved people of the Western world.
vii
viii Preface
In the first chapter, Kellehear and Anderson explore the
Australian way of death, arguing that its key images serve as
myths which marginalize other voices and experiences of
death in that country. They compare the deaths of Australian
Bushmen, the 'Digger'-Soldier death, and the deaths of
Australian suburbia with those of Australian aboriginals to
show that the Australian way of death, like the Australian
way of life, is patriarchal, gentrified and medicalised. These
images are repeatedly reflected and echoed in the next five
chapters as each of the Australian authors take up their
individual studies of the experience of death in Australia.
Fitzpatrick and Martin, take up the themes of how the
experience of a social marginal and patriarchal society has
shaped Australian experiences of death in art and writing
respectively. The dominance of that masculinist idea of death
continues its influence in the Australian experience of dis
asters, and this is explored in the chapter by Raphael. D'Alton
takes up the idea of the impact of the Digger-Soldier ex
perience for Australian images of death, while Fraser examines
Australia's long-standing concern about suicide.
Chapter 7 begins the British discussion of death in that
country, and Glennys Howarth begins this section with the
question: is there a British way of death? The chapter con
tinues the book's concern with difference and highlights cultural
construction and change in death mores. It also questions
whether it is possible, 0r indeed helpful, to attempt to trace
a 'British', or for that matter, a peculiarly 'English' way of
death.
Adams looks at class- and gender-specific variations in
In-Memoriam notices, tracing changes in the developing social
roles of women in Britain during the twentieth century.
Bernard Smale examines the social construction of the fu
neral in Britain and suggests that the recent interest in in
novation in death rituals may release the funeral directors'
control over this important ceremony. Tony Walter continues
the theme of diversity by challenging the idea that the 'stiff
upper-lip' approach to grieving is British, insisting that this
style of response is actually English. JuPP looks at why Brit
ish peoples appear overwhelmingly to prefer cremation to
burial, and Small looks at the peculiarities of British responses
to AIDS.
Preface IX
Chapter 13 introduces the first of the American chapters
devoted to reflections and observations about death in that
country. Leming and Dickinson provide an overview of
American attitudes to death and dying. They examine the
American approach to explaining death to children, death
attitudes and fears, ways of dying and grieving, and the con
temporary American funeral. They provide a broad-based
introduction to the American experience of death so that
against this tapestry of culture and attitude, the following
authors may situate their additional arguments and obser
vations about American death.
Michael Kearl argues that there is a strong immortalist
ethos present in American culture. He examines the main
local reasons why, among all the major Western countries
of the world, it is Americans who are consistently in the
business of denying death. And Kathy Charmaz continues
this examination of local historical and cultural reasons behind
the particular ways in which Americans grieve.
Bendiksen, Levy and Amick take our gaze into the American
health system. Bendiksen examines the differences that ex
ist between hospices, institutional ethics committees, advance
directives and other ethical consultations surrounding the
issue of death and dying. Levy and Amick examine the ex
periences of both active street addicts and prevention staff
in managing constant exposure to HIV infection and the
threat of becoming fatally ill. They explore the social strat
egies that staff and clients use to manage the constant spec
tre of d ,~ath.
Finally, in a highly relevant conclusion for most Western
nations, Donald Irish provides us with case studies of how
persons from diverse cultures or ethnic traditions vary their
response to death and dying just as they do in life itself.
This is a critical point for all three of the countries exam
ined in this book because all three have long traditions of
foreign migration.
In 1974, the French historian Phillipe Aries wrote Western
Attitudes to Death and thereby unwittingly continued a long
standing tendency to speak about Western responses to death
as if the differences in these countries were minor or unim
portant. Since death is universal, academic discussion of that
topic is frequently given to over-generalization. In providing