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Assignment 3: Create a folktale variant

Purpose

Learning to “do” folklore is like learning a language – if you speak it, you better understand other people who speak. If you can “tell” a folktale, you better understand oral performers like Jane Muncy or Zsuzsanna Palko. If you “write” or “illustrate” a folktale, you better understand the Brothers Grimm.

Overview

Instructions:

1. Create a variant of a folktale type that we encountered in class (stories from other sources should first be discussed with the instructor).

· You can record yourself telling it (this works best if you have somebody listening while you tell). Try to improvise, not memorize or read from a written text!

· You can also record another person telling it to you.

· Or you can skip oral performance and write a readable story, paint pictures, draw comics, create a video, sculpture, etc.

· Then, write the Annotation that you will submit on Canvas:

2. Write a short introduction/summary of what you did in #1, and what your reader should listen or look for in your performance, pictures, etc.).

· Insert any pictures or written story text here. (If you are sharing audio or video recording, type the link to the shared drive). Extra credit if you transcribe an oral, improvised performance!

3. Annotate your new variant (125-250 words):

· Text : Summarize the Type description. Point out significant motifs in your text.

· (You’ll find type descriptions in the Canvas page: If your folktale is not in the list, write to guntiss@uw.edu – mention the Type number if you know it, or summarize the plot of your folktale, and he’ll send you the type description).

· Variants: Compare your text to at least one variant. What motifs does your text share or adapt, and how?

· Texture : Comment on performance style (tales can be “performed” orally, visually, in writing, etc.). Note traditional patterns (Olrik’s “laws”, Holbek’s “structure”).

· Context : connect the text to its tradition, its performer (and don’t forget to describe the audience!)

· Interpret meaning and function, based on ideas from Module Four.

Alternate assignment 3, group project with classmates or friends: (Please discuss your plans with the instructor, at least a week before the due date). Create a variant of the mummers play described by Glassie. Post a shared video. Each student participant must submit their own annotation, including a link to the shared video (125-250 words):

· Text : Compare the performed text to texts assigned in class; Variants: Compare to variant(s) described by Boyle, Flanagan, or others in All Silver & No Brass. Texture : Comment on how the text was performed; Context : connect the text to its tradition, its performers and audience; Add comparative notes / interpretations based on ideas or examples from the course.

Privacy:

Only two people will see your work: Your teacher, and one student peer-reviewer. Your privacy and creative work is protected:

· It is illegal for anybody to download or share your work outside of this class, without your written permission.

 

· Model storytellers whom we’ve seen in Module 4, ideas for your variant:

1. Oral storytellers:

· Jane Muncy told a variant of ATU 327; Aato Kemppianen told ATU 510A; Zsuzsanna Palko told ATU 532; Clarissa Pinkola Estes told ATU 312;

· the Brothers Grimm wrote a variant of ATU 327; and

· the creators of movies like Into the Woods or Soldier Jack also told variants of ATU 310, 328, 333, 510A,

· etc.

 

Grading Criteria

This assignment is marked out of 25 points. Points are awarded based on the following six (6) criteria:

15 pts – Create: record yourself or another person telling it; or you can write it, paint pictures, draw comics, create a video, sculpture, etc. (above 12 points = going above and beyond the basic requirement)

Annotate:

2 pts – Text: summarize the Type description. Point out significant motifs.

2 pts – Variants: Compare how the type & motifs are adapted in a variant from course assignments & lectures.

2 pts – Texture: note traditional patterns (Olrik’s “laws”, Holbek’s “structure”); comment on performance style (tales can be “performed” orally, visually, in writing, etc.)

2 pts – Meaning(s): Interpret what the text means to its teller/audience, and how it might function.

2 pts – Context: Connect the text to its tradition, its performer and audience. Compare yourself (or your narrator) to storytellers encountered in class.

Previous Next

Folktale Variant

 

Student’s Name

Institution Affiliation

Course Name and Number

Instructor’s Name

Date

 

 

 

 

 

 

A long time ago, a farmer, his wife, and two children named Hansel and Gretel lived. The family had very little to feed, and their father would advise the woman to take the kids to the nearby forest and leave them there. The clever Hansel brought them back home twice, but luck was not on their side the third time, and the two children got lost in the forest. Finally, they came around an abandoned hut where an old witch stayed who welcomed them in with the motive of eating the children after feeding them well for several days, but the kids outsmarted her, killed her, and took her treasures back to their mother. The reader should look out for the meaning and variation of the story. The variant falls under things we believe in, as it mentions a witch with unnatural power. The text is a variant of Hansel and Gretel by the Grimm Brothers variant 327, and they share the motif of family, greed, and hardships.

DEATH AND DYING—SECTION THREE

Tuesday, November 1st

“In baseball, keep hitting, keep the rally alive, and you have defeated time.”

Roger Angell

“And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

Dylan Thomas

Both above quotes, while from different genres and associated with different events, reflect an orientation to death that existed (with a great deal of collective strength) up until the mid-to-late 20th Century. Specifically, we tended to regard death as a “sociological stranger,” of sorts, with it’s oppressive “time clock” and stubborn persistence that we were expected to transcend and fight against.

 

In effect, death is not simply a stranger; it is an unwanted invader that must be resisted or, at the very least, fought.

 

I. The Good Death—notions of a good death have confronted the apparent semantic oxymoron associating that which we fear and avoid with something positive. This apparent contradiction has challenged the dominant paradigm in our culture to fight death—to treat death and, by extension, time (as in “our time is up”) as an enemy at which we should direct our primal anger.

 

The notion of a good death, then, suspends our hostility toward the end of our time—and indicates that such finality is part of our life course.

 

A. The Good Death and Dialogic Past—commonsensically, one of the necessary conditions of a good death is having a good life on which to reflect. While we have seen that people (such as Paul Kalanithi) can examine their lives (and even participate in bringing new life to his world), we associate a good death with a dialogic past—or substantial experiences on which one can look back and that led to a feeling of (or at least, a myth of) closure.

 

The dialogic past is not nostalgic. Specifically, nostalgia refers to a bittersweet and emotionally laden longing of a past. It (nostalgia) can be quite seductive as an appeal to emotions—and all of us are drawn to its powerful force. Nostalgia can provide great comfort and be the source of provocative storytelling (and we all love stories). However, nostalgia is so fastened to the past, that it resists the vitality of the present and our ability to link the past and present with our ability to project futures.

 

As avoiding the seductive trap of nostalgia, the dialogic past provides an opportunity to connect obdurate and symbolically reconstructed pasts with our immediate present and the time we have left as we look toward (and imagine) our future.

 

[Clip from The Notebook ]

 

1. Obdurate Reality Related to Impending Death—in literal terms, obdurate means resistance—for instance, when we walk up a steep hill, we feel the obstruction associated with scaling such steepness; we begin to breathe heavier, we work hard to move in the same rhythm as we do when walking on flat terrain.

 

In more metaphorical terms, obdurate refers to acceptance of a reality that defies our will and our perceptions. Such a reality is affirmed by obvious and indisputable evidence (“the receipts of our life”). Those who lived a long enough adult life with time to reflect, prior to an inevitable death in the not-too-distant future, can make reference to this past and share it with others who accept the same reality.

 

2. The Symbolically Reconstructed Past—while we all face that which is undeniable in our past, we also re-engage in what might be called “the perimeter of an undeniable past—our cations and events that occurred, but can be interpreted (and reinterpreted) in ways that do not deny the obdurate/objective past.

 

As a thought experiment, consider an event from your past that occurred and cannot be denied. Then, consider how you responded to the event. Over time, you may have different interpretations of such a response (without changing the fact that the event occurred). Perhaps you even change your version of the response you made (and the responses of others). Importantly, you may even change your feelings about the event. The event remains obdurate, but that which surrounds the event (the perimeters) can change over time.

 

Thursday, November 3rd

3. The Past and Our First Betrayer—refers to the deterioration of one’s body. As we deal with such deterioration, we adapt to our limitations and immobility. In so doing, we also engage in various symbolic reconstructions of the past—as well as constant comparisons between the obdurate past associated with a heathy and able body and the body as it currently is.

 

The body as betrayer represents an emergent obdurate reality—a significant alteration that we cannot deny (even though we may engage in many techniques of denial). Over time, we normalize that which seemed alien to us; we also gain a view of freedom that relishes every step or move we can make—metaphorically speaking, we do not take our immediate footsteps for granted.

 

4. Redefining Alignment with Others—the common assumption associated with a deteriorating body is that we become re-infantilized—however, we can look at our increasing dependence on another (who cares for our bodily needs) as an adjustment in the way we engage with others— or as re-establishing the meaning of interdependence.

 

Importantly, we may see a specific other as our secret sharer—or as one who can help us accelerate our death in a way that can resolve the new, undeniable obdurate realty.

 

B. Copresence and a Good Death—those who have taken care of the dying, going back centuries, have noted that dying with rather than dying alone makes a significant psychological difference for the one departing and for survivors. Commonsensically, those who participate in the dying process together begin to realize (and to not take for granted) the power of sharing the same space at the same time as life comes to an end.

 

1. The Intense Social Group—sociologists have considered the intense social group as: richly intimate—and often small, consisting of dyadic (two-person) or triadic alignments.

 

The intense social group makes shared pasts an explicit and implicit foundation of situated activity. Unlike getting situated with strangers or acquaintances, two or three people with intimate connections have their own rules when entering into each other’s’ spaces and beginning interactional episodes.

 

In this vein, the intense social group suspends normative rules of social distancing—both literal (spatial) and figurative (emotional) distance. Additionally, the small social group creates cooperative ways to remember and recall (use a shared past) in ways that will have a significant impact on future interactions.

 

2. The Auto-Ethnographic Sequences—the dying person in a small social group establishes an open awareness interactional context with others, creating a bedtime narrative—and focusing on what the person considers important and essential immediately prior to one’s departure.

 

Such a narrative is messy, filled with combinations of sadness and humor (often “in collision” with each other, and suspending any sort of symbolic boundaries that had previously defined a relationship. Previous normative identities now become death bound identities that are focused primarily and exclusively on the dying person (and that become “away from” other relationships).

 

3. Survivor Labor—those in the small social group who will be, in the future, survivors, (or who function as making themselves available to the dying person) make sure to engage in “death and dying chores” that enable the dying person to be as comfortable as possible.

 

Survivor labor is especially important when a person dies at home, among loved ones. The loved ones alter their identities to take on the roles of laborers who attempt to make one’s dying days pleasant and serene.

 

Tuesday, November 8th

 

C. Subjectivity, Quality of Life, and the Good Death—the subjectivity of the death experience affirms the right of physically afflicted individuals to determine if and when their life has come to an end on the basis of their intra imaginative conception of themselves.

 

In reference to Million Dollar Baby (below) the alleged rights of the physically afflicted to accelerate the death process often violates the law. In Million Dollar Baby , Maggie’s eagerness to die involves Frankie, Maggie’s manager and surrogate father figure, providing lethal substances into her body and, from a legal perspective, murder her.

 

Frankie experiences a tremendous feeling of cognitive dissonance in which the act (killing Maggie) betrays his attitude (a motivation to keep Maggie alive), his beliefs (devout Catholic), and his unconditional love for Maggie.

 

Advocates for people with disabilities oppose this form of dying on the basis that the afflicted person’s death is not inevitable. Further, the afflicted person has not had time to grieve his/her condition—and to properly think out one’s decision . Nonetheless, from the subjective perspective of the afflicted individual (Maggie ), the end represents a good death.

 

[Clips from Million Dollar Baby ]

Million Dollar Baby

 

Frankie is an old-school boxing trainer who owns and runs a boxing gym (along with his best friend, Scrap Iron). He has a troubled relationship with his daughter (who never makes an appearance). All we as the audience know is that she returns every letter Frankie sends her.

 

Maggie, an aspiring boxer in her early 30s, wants Frankie to train her. Frankie turns her down, saying she is too old and inexperienced. Maggie persists and with the encouragement of Scrap Iron, finally gets Frankie agree to train her.

 

Maggie proves to be Frankie’s best and ideal student and before long, begins winning fights—representing a “rags to riches” accelerated story.

 

Frankie begins promoting her and “jazzing up” her boxer-in-the-ring appearance, buying her a green boxing overcoat with the words, “Mo Chuisle” on the back. Maggie gets a following (especially among the Irish) although Frankie never tells her what the words mean.

 

During the championship fight, Maggie is winning decisively, but her opponent cold-cocks Maggie from behind after one of the rounds is finished. Scrap Iron, who had put the wooden stool in the corner, cannot remove it in time and Maggie crashes into it, breaking her neck.

 

As Maggie lay in the hospital, a quadriplegic, she learns that her leg must be amputated (owing to bed sores). She then learns that another leg might be amputated. Feeling that her purpose in life is over, she asks Frankie to “do to me what my daddy did to Axle.”

 

As a backstory to the above request, Maggie and Frankie, who have become a surrogate dad-daughter, begin to becomes best of friends, Maggie tells Frankie about her dog Axle who had gotten sick—and her father took Axle behind the barn and shot the dog “to put him out of his misery.”

 

Frankie, a devout Catholic, is horrified by the request. He goes to his Priest, Father Horvac, with whom he has had a semi-contentious relationship—Father Horvac regards Frankie as a “pain-in-the-neck” who shows up for mass every single day and tries to engage Father Horvac in philosophical discussions about God.

 

On this particular visit, however, Frankie and Father Horvac talk about Maggie’s request in all seriousness. Father Horvac tells Frankie that he cannot follow through on Maggie’s request—if Frankie does follow through, he will be lost. He must turn Maggie’s misery over to God.

 

However, Frankie, who had been feuding with Scrap iron since Maggie broke her neck (Frankie wrongfully accused Scrap iron of being careless with the stool), talks with Scrap Iron, who tells Frankie that he gave Maggie “her shot.” People live and die in anonymity, working their lives away, and seldom get their shot.

 

Frankie decides to follow through on Maggie’s request and as Maggie lay in the hospital bed, Frankie takes her off the life-preserving machine and gives her enough adrenaline to, as Scrap Iron says (Scrap Iron is the narrator of the story), “kill a horse.” Maggie dies with a smile on her face—right before she dies, Frankie tells her the meaning of Mo Chuisle” (Irish for “My Darling”).

 

1. Moral Support—regarding the issue of dying, the afflicted individual (in the case, Maggie) needs an ally—one who will first, accept her decision as valid (and respect her subjective desire); and two, be willing to provide justifications in the face of criticism.

 

In effect, what is moral, in this context, has more to do with loyalty to the intense social group (mentioned above) than an abstract and theological view of what is right/wrong “in the eyes of God.”

 

1. The Indexical Request— is an appeal or utterance with a specific and provocative meaning exclusively understood between people with shared historical connections within the intense social group. No one, outside of the intense social group understands the request.

 

The request, in this case, Maggie’s desire to die, is accompanied by the auto ethnographic sequences (also mentioned above). It indicates a subjective desire to end one’s literal life and a subjective evaluation that such a life is not worth living.

 

Social psychologically, the person receiving an indexical request in such a circumstance (in which he is the only one who comprehends it) feels cognitive dissonance, but also, in a strange way , feels special for being the exclusive recipient of the request. The more a favor resembles a special connection, the more willing one is to accommodate the favor.

 

Thursday, November 10th

1. Psychology of inevitability—a determined afflicted individual (Maggie) who wishes to die, even against institutional and societal norms, can influence a supporter by putting his/her determination into practice ( praxis of dying)—by showing the supporter that the afflicted person will die one way or another.

 

The psychology of inevitability contributes to the survivor labor (also mentioned above) on the part of Frankie. He must now begins the emotional tug-of-war in his gut (between doing what is right, in regard to the intense social group), but what appears wrong from the abstract, moral/theological position.

 

1. Checklisting—although the supporter (in this case, Frankie) feels special as one being asked by Maggie for a favor, he also attempts to resolve his cognitive dissonance by seeking other points-of-view, ranging from open minded to definitively negative (e.g., Father Horvath, representing the view of Catholicism, cannot support the decision to end a person’s life).

 

1. Affirmation—in seeking out various standpoints the supporter can encounter justifications assisting death. In the context of Million Dollar Baby , Scrap Iron provides Frankie with specific reasons that make assisted death seem usual and normal.

 

By providing an affirmation, Scrap Iron altercasts Frankie—he provides Frankie with a different role than one merely assisting in the death of another. Specifically, Scrap Iron holds Frankie up as one who helped Maggie “have her shot” at a glorified life.

 

Tuesday, November 15th

 

II. The Possibility Ethos—refers to the difficulty in getting medical professionals to recognize a good death (as any more than a contradiction in terms).

 

Medical professionals, especially those who deal with illnesses that not only alter patients, but signal an end of life (oncologists, in particular), must walk a “tight rope” between providing hope and “a path to aa cure,” and keeping things real by emphasizing the probabilities associated with particular diseases. This emphasis on possibility, of course, can easily conflict with a possibility ethos.

 

An acceptance of one’s decision to die prior to “one’s time” or prior to an official (medical) diagnosis of “impending death,” is the recognition that the old paradigm, emphasizing “insuring as much time alive as one has available” and “fighting death,” can not only be unrealistic, but can also miss an opportunity to treat the end of life as part of a life stage in which people who are dying have the opportunity to situate themselves with loved ones with the identity of one dying.

 

The possibility ethos is founded on faith (in medical decision making) and hope (that one can beat seemingly insupportable odds). As mentioned, the fact that one might be able to live longer (rather than one probably will not live all that much longer) is a “strong wire” in that it is grounded and embedded in medical schools and in the education processes that accompany medical training.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQhI3Jb7vMg

 

Being Mortal  is a FRONTLINE public television documentary based on the eponymous book by Dr. Atul Gawande, a practicing surgeon. In general, it is a meditation on how people can better live with disabling frailty brought upon by serious illness that accompanies an obdurate, approaching death. Being Mortal explores the hopes of patients and families facing terminal illness and their relationships with the doctors who care for them.

Gawande calls for a change in the way that medical professionals treat patients approaching their ends. He recommends that instead of focusing on survival, practitioners should work to improve quality of life and enable well-being. Gawande shares personal stories of his patients’ and his own relatives’ experiences, the realities of disabling illness that bring about a lack of mobility and dementia, and how illness overwhelms families emotionally and financially.

 

One key theme of Being Mortal explores the hopes of patients and families facing terminal illness and their relationships with the doctors who care for them. The documentary tells the story of how Dr. Gawande, who is learning to think about death and dying as part of the life course, experiences a change in his own identity—experiencing a transformation from being a healer to being a guide, of sorts, that can help patients see their impending death as part of life and a process of moving through their ultimate stage of life.

 

By sharing stories from the perspective of both physicians and the people and families he encounters, including his own, the documentary sheds new light on how our system – so often focused on a cure – neglects the important conversations that need to happen so that a person’s true priorities can be known and honored at the end.

 

Importantly, from a sociological perspective, the stories in Being Mortal show us the value of shared decision-making in medicine at the end of life and illustrates the importance of a negotiated order—involving doctors as guides and patients as accepting their ultimate journey in their life course. As patients accept the inevitability of death, they also have time to reflect on what matters to them most.

 

The stories further reveal the human side of physicians, whose own vulnerabilities, fears, and lack of training may impede timely and open discussions with patients . In this vein, the aim of Being Mortal is to raise awareness of the importance of having conversations about end-of-life care and advance care planning. The conversations should include a wide range of individuals including clinicians who provide care.

 

Thursday, November 17th – Class Cancelled

 

 

Tuesday, November 29th

 

A. The Power of Socialization (in the Medical Context)—in their famous book, Boys in White (obviously dated, given the single gender assignment) the authors (including Blanche Geer and Howard Becker) provide a sociological examination of how medical instruction directed students to regard, selectively, the superiority of extending life over any sort of acceptance (or “giving into”) death.

Two key concepts associated with socialization in a medical contexts, master status and internalization, reflect the power of socialization in the medical context.

 

A master status (derived from the philosophical concept of categorical identity) represents a transcendent identity that dwarfs all other descriptions regarding the question, “Who am I?” All other descriptors of the self are “dwarfed” by this status, which becomes an identity “blessed” with undying respect (in our society) but also burdened by tremendous responsibility. Once one attains the status of Doctor, this person is regarded as a secular god who is able to heal the sick and maintain the health of others.

 

Internalization represents an individual’s response to the socialization process. When we internalize the lessons, rules, norms, and codes associated with socialization, we take these “educational passages” to heart—they become embedded into our soul and core being.

 

1. Medical Socialization and the Spector of Death—as one with the master status of Doctor, the process of internalization includes seeing one’s self as a creative and intelligent person who can use acquired skills to diagnose and cure. In effect, medical socialization regards death as a formidable foe of one’s master status as one who can help patients to “rage against the dying of the light” and help us “defeat time” in regard to death.

 

2. Medicine as the Art (and Science) of Resolution—applies to a solution-based orientation to disease. Geer and Becker observed instructors to engage in ongoing encouragement (of medical students) to commit themselves heavily to the role of fixer who engages in the skillful art/practice of restoration.

 

In this regard, the medical practitioner would graduate as a highly skilled and very intelligent “social plumber” or “social electrician” who (as we expect everyday plumbers and electricians to do) locate a problem for the purpose of finding a solution.

 

Thursday, December 1st

3. Medical Exceptionalism—related to the above glorification of assuming the role of fixer is the additional power of up-and-coming doctors being encouraged to see themselves as “chosen ones.” As Geer and Becker noted, the process of learning the art, craft, and science of medicine is akin to the process of “learning how to manage one’s place on the right side of God.”

 

Again, playing into the “against all odds” practice of healing—doctors may recognize something as incurable, but may also feel that, “this time may be different, especially with me on the case.”

 

4. Reframing—we all know how picture frames work; they provide a direction and focus on the key object and highlight the significance of the object’s content (which allows us to key on the potential meaning of the object as framed).

 

In the medical context provided by Being Mortal , the object (on the part of physicians, is to change the frame of the disease (e.g., the x-rays that depict a fast growing and inevitable “take over” of a tumor, leading to a certain death, from that of hope (for recovery) to compassionate care during one’s experience of demise—including the ongoing and incremental frailty and the eventual incapacitation of the dying person.

 

 

B. Meditation on Approaching Death—moves from a focus on fixing and “playing savior” to a focus on the emotional orientation to death (on the part of a patient) and on the emotional connections between medical caretakers and dying patients.

 

1. Revised Skill Sets— the “garden variety” approach to dealing with patient death is, sociologically speaking, via a closed awareness interactional context, in which the patient is an “outsider” when it comes to information exchange. As an example, I mentioned finding out about my mom’s impending death through her oncologist. When the oncologist told me that my mom had, at most, six months to live, I asked her if I should tell my mom this. “No,” she said, “let her enjoy your visit and I will approach her later.” Using the term “approach her” was significant to me—replacing a more informal, “we will talk about it.”

 

Revising the skill set opens up awareness, involving transparent, difficult, tactful, but also strident talk about the reality of death. In some ways, it may seem that opening up awareness signals the end of hope. But, rather than think about such opening up as ending hope, it changes the meaning of hope—from the possibility of a cure to the acceptance of an end that can be shared by the one dying and the loved ones who begin the process of closing with the dying person.

 

2. Powerlessness as an Asset– the notion of powerlessness is typically associated with something negative—connoting a lack of strength to carry on or to get by. But powerlessness can be a liberating feeling—as one recognizes what he/she cannot control as opposed to the things he/she can control. In the context of dying , powerlessness can be seen as a sign of strength—or at least as a sign that one is moving toward acceptance of the inevitability of death. This acceptance, which stems from an admission of being powerless, can decrease the anxiety and even terror associated with dying.

 

Importantly, both the attending doctors and the dying patient (and loved ones) construct a consensual definition of powerlessness; the doctors advancing the notion that a technical and expected cure is beyond their reach; the patient and family advancing the notion that the medical cure can transform into a social celebration of one’s life and the time each of them have left to enjoy the sacred seconds of a life that will expire shortly.

 

3. From Fixer/Healer to Cicerone—a cicerone (pronounced: sis – uh -roh-nee) is a guide or conductor who leads others to a specific destination. In mythological tales, the cicerone is one who meets the dying in an afterlife and leads them on their post-mortal journey (such as Charon who piloted the boat on the River Styx).

 

As mentioned earlier (and as one of the themes of Being Mortal), the medical practitioner who has earned a master status and internalized the perceived necessity to prolong life, faces a new paradigm that accepts death, especially dying, as part of the life course.

 

In the context of this new paradigm, the attending physician and medical practitioners (including nurses, therapists, and assistants) treat dying as part of our lived experience and a personal journey in and of itself. The medical practitioner, who earned a master status as fixer/healer and one who solves problems, is now encouraged to take on the role of guide, ushering the dying patient into a peaceful and pain free death.

 

 

III. Hospice and The Good Death—in the late 1960s, Dame Cicely Saunders, a registered nurse with vast experience caring for the dying, borrowed ideas from many historical circumstances across the world to establish a modern hospice system . The establishment did not come easy as Saunders had to defy the pre-existing medical paradigm of maintaining life for as long as possible (and utilizing new technology that allowed for the elongation of life).

 

Borrowing from the Latin word hospitum (or hospitable place of rest). Saunders sought to convince medical professionals that extending life, in and of itself, did not accomplish or fulfill the basic medical (Hippocratic) oath of “doing no harm”

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyPZEtCa88k

 

A. Palliative Care—the key objective of hospice care concerns the elimination (or neutralization) of pain as the patient dies. Such an objective requires a suspension of normative drug use (not only permission to use drugs that might otherwise be illegal, but permission to use dosages that exceed medical directives). One of the most common of such drugs is morphine—a Schedule II controlled substance (and analgesic) with restricted (time/place) usage and dosage (units per hour). Hospice encourages unrestricted use of such pain relief.

 

 

1. Sense of Place—one of the ways in which we feel “normal” (for lack of a better term) and one of the ways we feel a sense of belonging is when we are “matter in place”—or fit-into familiar and nurturing surroundings. Hospice emphasizes one’s process of death in as “non-alien” surroundings as possible (e.g., ideally, in one’s home/bedroom). Also, Hospice care is sensitive to the peaceful effects of flora. Being able to “pass” amid scenic surroundings and to immerse oneself in tree therapy is an ideal environment for hospice

 

2. The Neo-Luddite Approach—Luddites are famous for being anti-technology—for refusing to adapt to advances in “techno-living.” While unrealistic to many of us, Hospice had taken a “less medical technology the better” in a variety of circumstances—especially technology that does little-to-nothing more than prolong life. Particular technologies (e.g., vital fluids and nutrients that work through intravenous means) are used—but machinery that extends life (and only extends life) is eschewed by Hospice.

 

B. Death With Dignity—refers to familiarity, and especially, the sense of naturalness associated with, death . The meaning of death becomes associated with dignity—as in death with dignity—which shifts the control of time of the occurrence of death from institutional practitioners to a person facing an inevitable end. The key ideas associated with domesticating death, then, apply to a consensual agreement of the inevitability of death (soon) and the right of an individual to maneuver the future (by bringing it closer to one’s present dying condition).

 

 

1. Medical Aid in Dying—notably different than euthanasia and involving the patient, not the physician, administering the lethal medication. It is also important to qualify this situation as more ritualistic than suicide, per se. Patients using this policy do not, necessarily, want to die; their deaths are inevitable. However, they do have the power to end their lives in a peaceful manner. Because pharmacists fulfill an important role in this process, it is important that they keep these distinctions in mind.

 

2. Pharmaceutical Means—providing substantive means of ending lives is very specific and even controversial for some professionals. The American Society of Health-System Pharmacists policy outlines the right of a pharmacist to choose whether to participate in ethically, morally, or religiously troubling therapies. It is expected that employers reasonably accommodate this right Further, when agreeing to participate, pharmacists and medical professionals provide a systematic and carefully controlled “drug cocktail,” with sequential instructions.

 

IV. Metaphorical Death and the Demise of Relationships—the one way we do experience the concreteness of death is through comprehending the difference between being with and never being with another living human. With regard to relations in public, the above transformation is usually non-problematic— we open and close ritualistically with little thought in regard to the ending. However, and returning to the notion of self-lodging, closing exclusive relationships—or becoming unattached to one with whom attachment has created significant meaning—can traumatize a person and create, temporarily, a feeling of dying.

 

 

 

A. Incongruence—for a variety of reasons the certainty of sentimental connection cannot be aligned with the pragmatics of an operative connection. In effect, regardless of how strongly both feel, the weight of practical and even moral consequences override any particular feelings. We may have a deep desire to be with another, but we cannot carry out such a desire owing to current circumstances or places (literal and figurative) in which such desire exists.

 

1. Different Details—at times, the incongruity between sentiment and incongruity comes about owing to discrepant functional priorities. In the Bridges of Madison County, for instance, Francesca must think about the minute-to-minute (and even second-to-second) life with her husband and children—very formidable details. Robert thinks about details in conjunction with his art and his career as a photographer. With different details come different perceptions of what is right and what is wrong, beyond desire to be with another.

 

2. The Veil of Death—with a relationship demise, one lives in semi-isolation—no one else can really know how one feels—and often, one must hide how she/he feels from others (especially in regard to “unsanctioned love”—but even when love is sanctioned). Sometimes, the best one can do is “hide behind the smile” and pretend that all is well ( returning to the notion of the norm of minor euphoria).

 

3. Indexicality—intensity of shared histories, however brief, bring about shared idiosyncrasies—creating an arcane language that only the people with a shared history can understand. This language can be transmitted quickly and non-verbally—in effect, people become linked together through this shared arcane language that reinforces the intensity of the bond. It also can create a loneliness when the indexicality disappears (in this regard, we return to the concept of missing—and in particular, wonder, “Who will get me” now that he/she is gone?

 

4. Existential Choice—occasionally in our lives we must make a decision that with have an impact on the rest of our lives—we have turned this into a cliché (a la “a defining moment”)—although it put us in a double bind—in which no decision can be completely acceptable and any decision will involve considerable pain. As rational humans, we are expected to not set ourselves up for existential choices, but as ordinarily flawed humans, we experience such choices as we move through out life course.

 

5. Segregated Grief—related to the above veil of death, one experiencing relationship death often mourns in solace—without the “loss cred” of having survived a “real death.” At times, the segregated grief may be necessary—as with Francesca, who could not possibly share her sorrow as she engaged in an act many would consider “immoral.” However, even when involved in a sanctioned relationship, the grief can be mostly introverted—as one is still considered available for future romance. A strong norm of emotional recuperation can make the person feeling relationship grief feel even more isolated.

 

B. Managing the Ex-Role —we are often defined by our specific involvements with others (as much, and maybe even more so, than our personalities). Our specific involvements, at the very least, provide surface certainty. One might not be totally comfortable talking about her internal self, but she can be very confident, again on the surface, to publicly pronounce herself in terms of “ my boyfriend,” or “my husband,” or “my partner.” When one has “lost” that surface connection (via a break-up or divorce) he/she assumes an “ex role” so as, in part, to make it clear that one is familiar with a definition of self as involved—allowing for some semblance of certainty.

 

1. The Omi-Ex—as we have become more modernized and mobilized, we have also become more experienced as partners. We have moved from a more dogmatic stance on partnership (e.g., minimizing intensive/extensive contact with one) to a more experimental stance on partners (e.g., having multiple lovers prior to making an extended/ceremonial commitment). We simply have more “exes” on average (and in turn, we take on the role of more “exes” in relation to others)—making the “ex-role” more of a “rite of various passages” than a single, sometimes cataclysmic identity.

 

2. The Storied Ex—refers to the significant transformations one goes through as he/she changes form one connected (interdependent) to one unconnected (independent)—and how the dis-connection/independence radically changes a person. The radical change can involve a re-direction in one’s life plans, a sexual re-orientation, or a radical renewal of the self.

3. The Credible Ex—while we have more experience as lovers—ranging from casual to intense—we still resonate to a few rather than to many. Despite a norm of experimentation, we will create a hierarchy of love in which one or a few stand out more than others. In reality, despite massive changes and modernization, there is still such thing as the one who got away.

 

4. The Morbid Ex—despite our sophistication as modernized and experimental people, we not only resonate to one or a few, but we remain sensitive to the potential trauma of being connected to terror. Such a connection can occur when one becomes involved with an emergent monster or when one becomes involved with a diseased self (of course, one can become involved with one who is both).

 

The Phantom Ex—in which one is/has been involved illicitly, a person may wish to seek out another with whom one could form a non-judgmental bond. In this particular scenario, as applied to the Bridges of Madison County, Francesca and a woman named Lucy forge a residual bond—of two people with a common history (that often needs to go unsaid).

Death and Dying

 

Answer three of the following questions, drawing upon your choice of appropriate concepts and ideas from the book and lectures.

 

Your answers will be graded on the basis of creativity, persuasiveness, structure of the answer, paragraph structure, clarity of writing, and, of course, content. Remember, write like a boss!

 

1. What do you regard as a good death and why would you regard it as such? How is a good death defined and distinguished from death in general? What factors, in your opinion, contributed to our increasing acceptance of the notion of a good death? How does Hospice contribute to the definition of a good death? What do you see as the key benefits of Hospice and how to these benefits help with the transition from being alive to passing peacefully into that good night?

 

1. How does Maggie’s death in Million Dollar Baby compare/contrast with the definition of a good death? What kind of death do you regard it, and why? Do you agree with Maggie’s decision and why/why not? Provide a detailed answer to the question of why Frankie agreed to kill Maggie despite his deep religious beliefs (and against the advice of his priest?)?

 

1. At the end of Chapter 11 in Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking ) Joan wrote the following: Why do you always have to be right; Why do you always have to have to last word; For once in your life just let it go. In your assessment of Didion’s account of her experiences with the death and illness of her loved ones, to what, in particular, is Didion referring in regard to these questions and statement?

 

1. In regard to the video Being Mortal and class concepts, what factors have contributed to a change in the medical paradigm of preserving life as long as possible? Why were such changes difficult to make, given the socialization of medical students in the last Century? How and why have we accepted the notion that death is not the “enemy” on which we should “wage war” or against which we should rage?

 

1. Drawing on your own perspective and your choice of readings and lecture concepts, discuss you (and others that you know) manage the basic fact that we and our loved ones are mortal. How can knowledge of our (and, importantly, our loved ones’) mortality make us vulnerable and anxious? How does the study of death (even the surface study of death) help us deal with the vulnerability and anxiety associated with our (and our loved ones) deaths?