In premodern societies death was accepted positively, as something natural and expected. In modern times, as Aries stresses, death became a taboo subject, a subject, which must stay hidden and unapproached. Consequently, prejudices towards an old body and negative feelings towards death arose, and people started removing death from homely environment into institutions. Rules regarding death in the West are bound to silence, darkness, hindering of emotions, fear etc. Mainly a negative attitude towards death is shown. With the progress of medicine, we want to distance it as much as possible. To overcome the derogatory attitude towards death an international organization Hospic was established. In Slovenia Hospic has existed since 1995. Through the empirical part of my master’s thesis, I have determined that my peers and elderly perceive death similarly. The majority connects death with the end of life, departure and emotions that they cannot put into words. This is inevitably connected with the fact that the interviewed do not talk about death, do not think about it, despite the fact that they all crossed paths with it. Sadness is the main feeling that members of the both generations feel. Even though the authors underline that dying in institutions is the biggest novelty in modern times, the interviewed were not keen on dying in institutions.
|
