Group Activities

Group Activities

Death and Dying Group Activities

Cultural Customs of Death

Customs, Culture, and Death

Humor and Death

Television and Death

Media Images of Death

Deathbed Media Scenes

Death in the News

Adapted from J. Davis Mannino, Grieving Days, Healing Days, Allyn & Bacon 1997.

Cultural Customs of Death

In the long run we are all dead.

John Maynard Keynes

Overview

We all know that death is universal. What is not universal is how each of us responds to it. Death elicits responses that are molded by our attitudes, values, and beliefs. They are uniquely ours, because each of us comes from a particular family, society, and culture. Whether it is the prevailing culture or a smaller subculture, our vision and our worldview are colored by our upbringing. Examining different cultures helps us understand other beliefs while also increasing our understanding of our own culture and worldview.

Directions

In group compare and contrast aspects of your culture or another culture you are familiar with, regarding death and dying rituals. Use your textbook for guidance. Discuss the following questions:

What culture have you chosen to examine? Describe some beliefs and practices.

What aspects of these practices did you like? Dislike? Why?

Describe how the disposition of body remains is handled. Explain some of these tasks.

What are some death rituals and customs? Give examples (e.g., burial ceremonies).

What are some of the cultural beliefs concerning afterlife? Religion? Spirits?

Adapted from J. Davis Mannino, Grieving Days, Healing Days, Allyn & Bacon 1997.

Customs, Culture, and Death

Turn up the lights,

I don't want to go home in the dark!

O'Henry

Overview

Nothing affects our understanding, our fears, or our beliefs about death and dying more than the culture we are from and the religion we practice. For example, in Mexico, “El Dia de los Muertos,” or “Day of the Dead,” not only celebrates family members who are dead but even pokes fun at some of the silliness of death and dying rituals and practices. Among some American Indian tribes, the name of the deceased is never mentioned because to do so would anger the spirits. In some African cultures, death is not complete until a funeral of “great standing” has occurred, sometimes years later, after a family has gathered and saved up enough money to carry out the funeral in the prescribed manner.

Directions

In group develop a list of death customs you and your family have participated in or heard about. Use as your frame of reference both your culture and your religion. Compare and contrast those customs with those of another culture.

What are the purposes of these customs and beliefs?

How do these customs and practices fit into the larger society?

Does discussing differing and unfamiliar customs make them seem less bizarre or strange?

Which customs and practices might you like used at your own death ritual?

Are their customs or cultures about which you would like to learn more?

Adapted from J. Davis Mannino, Grieving Days, Healing Days, Allyn & Bacon 1997.

Humor and Death

I'm not afraid of dying.

I just don't want to be there

when it happens!

Woody Allen

Overview

You've probably heard of the funeral parlor that sponsored a large advertising billboard along a stretch of highway notorious for accidents that said, “Don't drink and drive! We'd rather wait. Smith's Funeral Parlor.” And then there is the gravestone with the simple begrudging comment carved in stone: “I told you I was sick!” Then there was a story of Bill, who kept his sense of humor right to the end. Bill, old and tired, arrived at the hospital after a long decline in health. Death was only a short time off. The attending nurse, while holding Bill's hand, offered, “You can let go Bill, it's OK to let go. You can go now, just follow the white light.” After several minutes of being told to “go, let go,” Bill opened one twinkling eye and said, “OK, but only if you come with me!” Even during the worst of times some people rise to the occasion as though it was the best of times.

What do different examples of death humor have in common? They are all methods of dealing with the fragile veil separating life from death and with our whispering uneasiness of this simple knowledge. Death humor is as varied as the town we live in or the culture we come from. In Mexico death is celebrated in a yearly national fiesta known as El Dia de los Muertos - Day of the Dead. Death is satirized with humorous candy skulls and coffins. Children playfully dance with skeletons and eat bread made in the shape of bones. Death itself is made fun of in almost defiant fashion while the deceased relatives are given renewed respect and encouragement to rejoin families for dinner. Places of respect are set at the dinner table and food served to the returning spirits. As you probably know, humor is a way of neutralizing the nail-biting and pit-in-the stomach feelings that death brings about in most of us; the uneasiness of the unfamiliar. Emotionally speaking, our options are quite limited. We either shut up and shut down or open up and speak up. Humor is the great equalizer in a society that discourages breaking down the long established taboo of discussing death.

Directions

During the next week or so, select a cartoon or other media expression that deals with death in a humorous fashion and manner. Bring examples to share in class. Why did you choose the humor you did? Explore how humor is useful in stressful situations.

Adapted from J. Davis Mannino, Grieving Days, Healing Days, Allyn & Bacon 1997.

Television and Death

He can't be dead, I just saw him on television!

Overview

Perhaps no medium is more responsible for our understanding and misunderstanding of death and dying than television. Cartoon characters get run over by steamrollers, and their deaths are reversed with no serious consequences to their bodily functions. Then, their slapstick comedy routine returns in the blink of an eye. A good example of this is “The Itchy and Scratchy Show” from the Simpson's TV show - a cartoon show within a cartoon show. Moving from imagination to reality, the vivid scenes of the war in Vietnam told us too well that war was indeed hell complete with body bags, body counts, and on-the-scene coverage of “instant death.”

People have always been mesmerized by life and death hanging in the balance, only a breath and TV remote control away. The medical, police, and emergency-type shows that are filling our airways these days are great examples of how television portrays death and dying. For television, death is a time of contrition. Good must prevail! The guilty confess on their deathbed and on cue. The wrongfully accused are cleared moments before they die with their loved ones in attendance. Death seems to come timely and forthrightly. There is something in our society's psyche that says all wrongs must be righted and justice and truth prevail - if not in life, certainly no later than prime-time death time. What does this all say about our sense of truth and fair play? Why are we always waiting and expecting the condemned killer to confess and apologize for their atrocities just moments before their execution? Why is it we expect the record to be set straight at death time? What is it about morality and death we hold so sacred?

Directions

Watch different medical, police, emergency-type programs, or the evening news on television, paying special attention to how terminally ill patients, their doctors, nurses, other caregivers, family, and friends are shown and portrayed.

How do fictional television show portrayals of death and dying differ from evening news accounts?

What were the patient ages, sex, and economic levels in the shows you watched?

What were the personalities like? Were there differences in “good guys” vs “bad guys?”

How did family and medical staff treat these TV show patients?

How was death presented? Realistically? Any stereotypes? Cultural issues?

What were some of the causes of these television deaths?

Were they deaths similar or different from your own experience with and perspectives of death?

What values, morals, and ideals were expressed in these deaths? Humor? Euphemisms used?

Which shows did you find most realistic? Fun to watch?

Adapted from J. Davis Mannino, Grieving Days, Healing Days, Allyn & Bacon 1997.

Media Images of Death

It is impossible to experience

one's death objectively and

still carry a tune.

Woody Allen

Overview

The media's view of issues related to death permeates our society to the core. Therefore, the media is an important source for understanding society's view of death.

Directions

Over the next week, select art, photographs, magazine and newspaper clippings that show and discuss death and dying. Discuss your thoughts and feelings from these images.

What specifically about each image caught your attention or triggered an emotional response in you?

What themes and topics regarding death and dying were found in the media?

What values, attitudes, and behavior from culture and society are “commented upon” in the media?

Compare the various images and gauge how different groups responded to them and how they compare.

Adapted from J. Davis Mannino, Grieving Days, Healing Days, Allyn & Bacon 1997.

Deathbed Media Scenes

And I looked, and beheld a pale horse:

and his name that sat on him was Death.

Revelations

Overview

Deathbed scenes have been stylized and idealized throughout human history. The young American Indian brave summons his companions to battle with the chant “It is a good day to die!” The godfather blesses his family one last time. The biblical sinner renounces his ways and embraces Christ while nailed to a cross. The Japanese kamikaze pilot aims his plane into an American aircraft carrier. The frontier marshal who is hit with a fatal bullet as his guns blaze away at cowboy criminals as the sun sets in the backdrop.

The two greatest sources of romanticized deathbed scenes come from literature and television. Most of us are familiar with some or many literary deathbed scenes. So let's talk about television. TV has always depicted deathbed scenes as though they were a farewell performance for the dying actor. The romanticized portrait of the dying person is generally one of happy and gentle kindness. They dying person looks and talks well right up to the moment of death - something that, in fact, rarely happens. The words are always loving, forgiving, and mostly sweet-sounding. What most healthcare professionals and caregivers will tell you is that people generally die in death as they were in life. If they were grumpy, angry, and persnickety sorts, they'll go out that way too. If they were easy going, gentle sorts they'll go out that way as well. If a person was unable to self-actualize in life, it is unlikely they will accomplish it at dying time. After all, dying is a fairly time-consuming process, not conducive for getting one's life together. That is not to say there are not exceptions and profound transformations during the dying process, but the script is fairly predictable based on one's life to date. Death is a time for honesty. And dying can be a process by which to achieve that honesty.

Directions

Focus on deathbed scenes you've read about in literature and seen in the “pop-death” media.

Come up with a list. What did you find?

Why have these particular scenes developed in the arts and in our society?

What do you believe you might find in real deathbed scenes?

What would a good deathbed scene be for you?

Is there anything we can do to assure a good deathbed scene?

Adapted from J. Davis Mannino, Grieving Days, Healing Days, Allyn & Bacon 1997.

Death in the News

The lightning said to the oak tree:

Stand aside, or take what is coming to you!

Sufi tale

Overview

“Elvis Presley can't be dead, I just say him on television!” The mass media has a way of blurring and numbing our view of reality and death. Death touches our lives from a dozen poignant and matter-of-fact angles each day. “Oklahoma City Bombing - Hundreds Dead!” “Firefighter lost fighting fire!” “Police officer killed in drug war crossfire!” These are common headlines in our local newspapers. Technology brings death right into our homes. From the early days of the Vietnam War to the Challenger space shuttle disaster of 1986 to the Desert Storm war in Iraq, death is in our faces, up-close and personal. Death arrives on our doorsteps personally and impersonally day in and day out. Late Soviet Union dictator Josef Stalin once observed, “A single death is tragedy, while a million deaths is a statistic.”

Our view of death is sanitized, coded, and isolated in our society. We don't have the firsthand experience we need to place a “face” on death, to personalize death. As long as death is a statistic, we don't have to feel any emotion. Death is everywhere, whether we choose to see it or not see it. Death is much more than a death notice or an obituary.

Directions

Examine the type and kinds of articles found in the local newspaper. Inventory or cut out different articles on death.

What are your thoughts about how we desensitize ourselves to death?

How does the media shape our images?

Why might it be important to not be too desensitized to death?

Is society truly preoccupied with death? Or does the media tend to focus on death-related news events because they are considered newsworthy, placing the topic in front of a typically death-denying society?