Starting with the observation that attitudes towards death cannot be divorced from attitudes towards life, the author proceeds with a critical and reflective look at American society's poor management of death, both in terms of the dying person and the bereaved. Denial is the mechanism used to protect ourselves from facing the fact of death, and…

Identifies a number of the major aspects of social class that freshman composition addresses in its aims of enabling students to think and write in ways that will make them good citizens of the academic (and larger middle class) community and viable candidates for good middle class jobs upon graduation. (TB)