ABSTRACT
These descriptions and definitions have been extracted from a Western social context where the corpse normally lies hidden from the public gaze, visible only under the strictly controlled conditions of the mortuary or Chapel of Rest. As a result, for many viewers, the strangeness of the dead body lies precisely in its materiality, a quality which appears to predominate in the absence of other attributes such as warmth, muscle tone, facial expression and speech. Indeed, it is the body’s materiality which must be dealt with as a matter of urgency, lest it smell, produce fluid or infect the bodies of the living (see Chapter 7).
