Response to "Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain"

4.                  From the very beginning of this passage, its title, we find that Mitford pokes fun at the entire funeral and embalming industry. Throughout the passage, Mitford explains the process of embalming a body, and points out how incredibly ridiculous the entire thing is. She further explains how far from reality the rest of the living people are to this process. I agree to a certain extent with almost everything Mitford brings up, partly because I believe her passage makes sense, but also because her descriptions were apt enough to make me squirm in my seat, yet at the same time marvel the level of satiric language included.
                    Mitford makes her opinions of the embalming process quite clear in this passage. Her idea of the process is that the ones who enjoy the work or benefit from it have no problem with cleaning up a dead body, and that the people who don't understand the embalming procedures have no idea what is going on with the body; people are either having fun with the body, or blissfully unaware of the gruesome work that is put into prepping said body for the time when the "curtain" is drawn and the work of art revealed. Mitford's title gives the reader the understanding that the body is prepped like a production, and kept behind a curtain until the final showing. This curtain prevents anyone from understanding the vile work put into the body before its debut in the casket. The average person will not even expect their deceased to be embalmed, because, as Mitford points out, it is generally assumed that the body will be embalmed. Mitford Recites to us the tale of the embalming because it is ironic that none of the work is appreciated by the ones who it is done for. The family of the deceased do not usually think about the process of embalming, but pay for it anyway, and have no understanding of what type of effort is put into the dead body sitting in the casket at the funeral. The descriptions of the operations done in preparation for the body are horrifyingly soul-scarring. This powerful language is interesting because it forces the reader to take note, and ultimately be completely entranced by the terrible process. At the end of the essay the reader reflects on what he or she has just read, and realizes that the point was to show how much effort goes into something that no one really gives a thought to.
                     I have to say (write), that I actually do agree with what Mitford says. This is solely because I have not ever heard of this process, with the exception of Evita Peron in South America. I fully understand that I am taking a side on this issue based completely on one argument, without even hearing or thinking of a counter to it. I think that the way Mitford presents her idea of the embalming immediately biases the reader towards her side, mostly because it is written so well. As for my own experience, I have only been to two funerals, both were my grandparent's. In one, we had my grandmother cremated, and in the other, we had a closed casket for my grandfather. Now, I didn't really think about the actual body of my grandfather, nor was embalming mentioned at all during the weeks the led up to that day, so either he was embalmed and I was one of the blissfully ignorant people, or he wasn't and I had no idea. Either way, I completely fell into Mitford's stereotypically ignorant people.