Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain by Jessica Mitford

¶ … Formaldehyde Curtain paints a picture of an antiseptic departure to the netherworld. Mitford argues that the traditional viewing of the body is strictly an American aberration, concocted by morticians in order to display their morbid artistic talents and to make a buck at the expense of the bereaved. Furthermore, the author implies that American culture promotes denial in the face of death.

Let us begin with the practice of embalming. Mitford begins by asking a rhetorical question "Is all this legal?" That, in and of itself, lets the reader know her bias. The author notes that there are laws in place dealing with processes to which a dead body may be subjected. The signature of the next of kin is needed before an autopsy, or a cremation, or before the body is turned over to a medical school for research purposes. However, "…no law requires embalming, no religious doctrine commends it, nor is it dictated by considerations of health, sanitation, or even of personal daintiness. In no part of the world but in Northern America is it widely used. The purpose of embalming is to make the corpse presentable for viewing in a suitably costly container." Handing over a body to a funeral home implies consent to embalm. Mitford's initial argument is slanted to persuade the reader that the practice of embalming is a sham.

Mitford goes on to wonder at the "docility of Americans who each year pay hundreds of millions of dollars for its [embalming] perpetuation, blissfully ignorant of what it is all about, what is done, how it is done." The procedure is done by an embalmer-restorative artist, a personage with a nine or twelve month course of knowledge, who subjects the body to a variety of tools and potions in order to fix or restore the body to a natural state.

This is done all to provide the family with an "open casket" in order to view the deceased. Mitford notes that people from other countries are amazed by all this fuss. A woman from England living in San Francisco could not comprehend why the mourners would care to look at "poor old Oscar lying there in his brown tweed suit, wearing a suntan makeup and just the wrong shade of lipstick. If I had not been extremely fond of the old boy, I have a horrible feeling that I might have giggled."

Mitford's strategy is to minimize the significance of the viewing and contribute to the absurdity of the funeral home industry. This works to further her argument that the entire death experience is, as it now unfolds is not based on the needs of the family but on their perception of what is customary. The corpse becomes a sort of canvas for the mortician to practice his magic and create the illusion of the living dead. The secrecy surrounding the entire procedure is necessary; otherwise the funeral industry would eventually go out of business. No one would knowingly subject a loved one, even a dead loved one to some of the measures she so graphically describes.

The burial itself is an extension of this notion. The casket is lowered by a mechanical device, an artificial grass mat is utilized to conceal the dirt, and tent is erected to shade the bereaved. A "Gordon Leak-Proof Earth Dispenser" is then used to in the ritual of scattering earth over the coffin. "Untouched by human hand, the coffin and the earth are now united."

Mitford criticism of the funeral industry, and by extension the manner in which Americans deal with death, is quite dark. The author is exposes our reluctance to deal with the realities surrounding the passing of a loved one. The last sentences "He has done everything in his power to make the funeral a real pleasure for everybody concerned. He and his team have given their all to score an upset victory over death." Only goes to underscore the way American culture is structured to sterilize this experience.