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| "Pollice Verso" (1873) by Jean-Léon Gérôme |
What did you think about the main character’s complaint about "the way we talk about people who have 'lost' their lives" and her question, "If you die of cancer, does it make you a loser?"(60).
Do you agree that this way of phrasing things ("losing the battle") symbolically "robs you of your agency," implying that if someone dies it is because they "didn't fight hard enough"(60)?
Or does putting it this way suggest that their death was heroic and not passive?
Do you think it is offensive or insensitive to refer to someone as "dying" instead of saying that they "passed" or they "passed away"?
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ReplyDeleteI do not see someone referring to another as dying as offensive, but I can see her point of view. The narrator, looking at their life as someone with cancer, especially a person who lost their mother to the same illness, might see the use of the word dying as insensitive. I think her questioning how certain words can shift how someone is perceived after death is an interesting question that I haven’t thought about. Like the author said, by shifting this person's death to focus on the illness being the factor behind it, it could subconsciously be seen as them "losing the battle." I don't see someone dying of an illness as passive, though, because it puts people in difficult physical and mental states that people try to overcome. Most of the time, when someone falls ill, they try everything to become better.
ReplyDeleteI agree that phrasing a death caused by cancer as "losing a battle" can be insensitive because it can insinuate that someone simply did not try hard enough to prevent their own death; however, I think the intent behind the phrase is to frame having cancer as a heroic act undertaken by someone to fight this terrifying disease. In contrast, I view this intent as somewhat harmful because nobody has a choice about whether or not they have cancer, and they are not cowards or failures for "losing the battle to cancer." Additionally, I do believe that it is better to simply say that someone has died rather than sugar coating and saying that someone "passed away". I think that the most common reason people use the phrase "passed away" is as a way to avoid explaining to children what death is. However, death is a part of life that children must come to grasp, and children understand far more than adults give them credit for. They are more than capable of grasping the concept, given it is explained in an age-appropriate way.
ReplyDeleteI don't agree with the idea of phrasing death as losing a battle. It's disrespectful to imply that if someone died it was because they didn't fight hard enough. Dying isn't a "battle", you don't win or lose, it just happens to everyone. However, I don't think that it's insensitive to say somebody died because, once again, it happens to everyone.
ReplyDeleteI do not agree with the idea that if someone dies it means that they 'didn't fight hard enough.' I think that when a person dies, it simply means that it was their time or they chose to go onto the next chapter of their lives. Nobody wants to die. It's that simple for most. Some people just end the battle in a draw or give themselves the mercy of being the one in control of how they will go. Additionally, while I do not think it is offensive to say that someone has 'died' rather than they 'passed away,' I do believe it is easier to think of death through the sugarcoated term. Just so you can picture they passed onto the next part of their life rather than that they are just gone.
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