Framing memories of the dead: the rhetorical work of the memory picture in the deathcare industry

Abstract

ABSTRACT Rhetorical studies of public memory explore the ways in which memory is made material and how those means condition our own embodiment of memory. One space for this type of rhetorical memory work featured in this essay is the encounter with the corpse during funeral services. While research on funeral rhetoric has been foundational to our understanding of memory and epideixis, we focus on the embodied rhetorics that support and sustain the values we have toward the deceased in the processes of encountering them. We share interviews with deathcare workers and a rhetorical ethnography of the deathcare industry to elaborate on the figurative work and backstage processes that make memorializing the dead possible. We contend that “memory pictures” can be understood as material instantiations of memory that shape the processes of encountering and remembering the dead. This article details phases of encountering the recently deceased body and how the deceased body is made into a corpse to remember and mourn. The phases and technical processes of working with corpses are bluntly described with details about preparing, embalming, and displaying dead bodies. The straightforward and sometimes graphic description of these phases and processes may be disturbing or upsetting for readers.