ABSTRACT
Funerals are, for many, essential as the collective goodbye and tribute and expression of love and affection for the person who has died. Others regard them as a trial to be endured. They are strange affairs too, inspiring all kinds of responses. Tennessee Williams puts into the mouth of Blanche in his play A Streetcar Named Desire describing the impact on her of the funerals of her culture: ‘And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths-not always. Sometimes their breathing is hoarse and sometimes it rattles, and sometimes they even cry out to you, “Don’t let me go!” Even the old sometimes say, “Don’t let me go!” As if you were able to stop them! But funerals are quiet, with pretty flowers. And, oh, what pretty boxes they pack them in!’.1
