Dirt, Death, Decay and Dissolution: American Denial and British Avoidance

Abstract

In the past in both Britain and America, bodies were buried directly in the earth, enclosed in coffins whose shape reflected that of the corpse. The decay and dissolution of the earthly remains of the deceased were obvious and taken for granted. However, in both countries beginning in the latter part of the nineteenth century and accelerating in the twentieth, major changes have taken place in the way the remains of the dead are disposed of. These distance the living from decay, dissolution and indeed death itself. What is striking, though, is that these changes should have taken such a very different form in the two countries, with the Americans choosing to deny death, decay and dissolution through the disguise of embalming, while the British avoid them by means of cremation.