Journal #6

After Richard Morris' article, "Death on Display", we should all consider that tombstones and "gravescapes" are most certainly everyday writing. Morris argues that death is a rhetorical situation; the death of someone is the exigence, and the solution is to create a memorial for the recently deceased. Morris revisits the history of graveyards which were originally put into community centers to remind the living of how quickly their lives could be ended, a kind of "seize the day" subliminal message. The way that a grave may be viewed is dependent on different factors such as location, position, and even the details that are put into the "gravescape". Like Brandon previously wrote, the audience of the grave may be effected by the location of the tombstone i.e. if they spent their life in the area as opposed to somewhere they lived for a short amount of time before death. The location of a grave may also effect the overall mood when we consider the difference between the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C, compared to the gravestone of a 3 month old child in Whitesville, W.V. There is no doubt that both memorials are there to signify the loss of a persons life, but the emotions (ethos) are very different. The Washington Monument was erected in the capital of the United States, which has been seen by many people, and it signifies power and authority. The gravestone of the 3 month old child is not seen by many, other than the people who live in the town, and the tombstone signifies innocence and the ending of an early life. Another reason that tombstones should be considered as everyday writing is because they are not tied in any way to the institution or establishment, therefore the people who create the graves or come up with the ideas on how to decorate it do not need schooling to learn how to efficiently create a tombstone. Although the dead can not speak for themselves, it is up to those who were close to them to properly display their lives through the "gravescape" using words, quotes, poems, and maybe symbols or pictures engraved into the tombstone. This makes graves unique to each other because no two people lived the same lives or were in the same community, etc.