Death, Using symbolic Interactionism and Codes Essays -- Sociology

As human beings we react towards things depending on the meaning it gives us as an individual or a society. ‘For interactionsists, what marks human beings off from all other animals is their elaborate semiotics: a symbol-producing capacity which enables them to produce a history, a culture, and very intricate webs of ambiguous communications’ (Turner, B. 200). Death is a sociological issue that affects everybody from different cultures, religions, and areas of the world, each viewing the meaning of death differently. ‘These meanings are handled in and modified through an interpretative process used by the person in dealing with the things him/her encounters’ (Blumer 1969). The meanings and symbols of death are different within each society. Whether it’s words, gestures, rules or roles, social interactionism focuses on the way people act through symbols, and the way we interpret and give meaning to the world through our interactions. A funeral is an im portant symbolic code that represents the feelings and meanings in which particular societies view death. Even as times are changing, people still believe it is important to visit places where mass-deaths have occurred, such as ground zero or the German war memorials. The fascination with death has a big influence over the media; people are captivated with pandemics and the death of the famous. People now experience social deaths as well as biological deaths. Elderly people with dementia, people who are in comas or who are severely disabled an unable to speak or communicate, are biologically living but socially are not. In this essay I will explore how symbolic interactionism influences funerals, considering the sociological issue of death, and analyse differences in the meaning of... ...atients? Kings College London: Macmillan). (Walter, T. (1990) Funerals: And How To Improve Them. Kent: Hodder and Stoughton) (Bernat, J.L. (1998) A Defence of the Whole-Brain Concept of Death. Hastings Centre Report). (Skelton et al 2002) In Kellehear, A. (2009) The Study of Dying: From Autonomy to Transformation. United States of America: Cambridge University Press) (Antonius C.G.M. Robben (2004) Death, Mourning and Burial: A Cross-Cultural Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd.) (Douglas, J. (1974) Understanding Everyday Life. Great Britain: Routledge) ( Turner, B. (200) The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory. (2nd Ed.) Malden, Massachusetts USA: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.) (Turner, R. and Edgley, C. (1976) In : Building Image, The Presentation of Self. http://www.sagepub.com/newman4study/resources/turner1.htm. Accessed on: 04/05/12)