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The Macabre Style: Death Attitudes of Old‐Age Home Residents in Israel
Author(s) -
Gamliel Tova
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
ethos
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.783
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1548-1352
pISSN - 0091-2131
DOI - 10.1525/eth.2003.31.4.495
Subject(s) - macabre , denial , afterlife , consciousness , rhetorical question , mythology , style (visual arts) , aesthetics , sociology , psychology , literature , psychoanalysis , epistemology , art , philosophy
An inductive, ethnographic analysis of death attitudes among old‐age home residents in Israel is employed to describe the construction of a peculiar death‐related discourse termed "the macabre style." This authentic voice of elderly residents emerges from interviews, conversations, and observations as a form of self‐immersion in a particular collective consciousness generated by expectations of impending death. The macabre style's rhetorical devices include grim and direct references to death and dying, black humor, historical archetypes, and biblical myths. This construct is further used in order to reflect on and criticize the conceptual circularity of conventional academic categories regarding death attitudes such as "acceptance" and "denial," and as an indication of an old age metonymic discourse of self‐transcendence.