The American Way of Death Revisited (5 page)

Thirdly, there is an assortment of myths based on half-digested psychiatric theories. The importance of the “memory picture” is stressed—meaning the last glimpse of the deceased in an open casket, done up with the latest in embalming techniques and finished off with a dusting of makeup. Another, impressively authentic-sounding, is the need for “grief therapy,” which is big now in mortuary circles. A historian of American funeral directing hints at the grief-therapist idea when speaking of the new role of the undertaker—“the dramaturgic role, in which the undertaker becomes a stage manager to create an appropriate atmosphere and to move the funeral party
through a drama in which social relationships are stressed and an emotional catharsis or release is provided through ceremony.”

Lastly, a whole new terminology, as ornately shoddy as the rayon satin casket liner, has been invented by the funeral industry to replace the direct and serviceable vocabulary of former times. “Undertaker” has been supplanted by “funeral director” or “mortician.” (Even the classified section of the telephone directory gives recognition to this; in its pages you will find “Undertakers—see Funeral Directors.”) Coffins are “caskets”; hearses are “coaches” or “professional cars”; flowers are “floral tributes”; corpses generally are “loved ones,” but mortuary etiquette dictates that a specific corpse be referred to by name only—as “Mr. Jones”; cremated ashes are “cremains.” Euphemisms such as “slumber room,” “reposing room,” and “calcination—the kindlier heat” abound in the funeral business.

If the undertaker is the stage manager of the fabulous production that is the modern American funeral, the stellar role is reserved for the occupant of the open casket. The decor, the stagehands, the supporting cast are all arranged for the most advantageous display of the deceased, without which the rest of the paraphernalia would lose its point—Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. It is to this end that a fantastic array of costly merchandise and services is pyramided to dazzle the mourners and facilitate the plunder of the next of kin.

Grief therapy, anyone? But it’s going to come high. According to the funeral industry’s own figures, the average undertaker’s bill—$750 in 1961 for casket and “services”—is now $4,700, to which must be added the cost of a burial vault, flowers, clothing, clergy and musician’s honorarium, and cemetery charges. When these costs are added to the undertaker’s bill, the total average cost for an adult’s funeral today is $7,800.

The question naturally arises, is this what most people want for themselves and their families? For several reasons, this has been a hard one to answer until recently. It is a subject seldom discussed. Those who have never had to arrange for a funeral frequently shy away from its implications, preferring to take comfort in the thought that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Those who have acquired personal and painful knowledge of the subject would often rather forget about it. Pioneering “funeral societies” or “memorial associations” dedicated to the principle of funerals at reasonable cost
do exist in a number of communities throughout the country, but until recently their membership was limited to the more sophisticated element in the population—university people, liberal intellectuals—and those who, like doctors and lawyers, come up against problems in arranging funerals for their clients.
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Some indication of the pent-up resentment felt by vast numbers of people against the funeral interests was furnished by the astonishing response to Roul Tunley’s 1961
Saturday Evening Post
article. As though a dike had burst, letters poured in from every part of the country to the funeral societies, to local newspapers. They came from clergymen, professional people, old-age pensioners, trade unionists. Three months after the article appeared, an estimated six thousand had taken pen in hand to comment on some phase of the high cost of dying. Many recounted their own bitter experiences at the hands of funeral directors; hundreds asked for advice on how to establish a consumer organization in communities where none exists; others sought information about prepayment plans. Thirty years later, the situation seems worse. In 1993 I wrote a letter encouraging funeral simplicity which appeared in a “Dear Abby” column. More than thirty thousand people wrote asking for information about funeral-planning societies. The funeral industry, finding itself in the glare of the public spotlight, continues to engage in serious debate about its own future course—as well it might.

Some entrepreneurs are already testing the waters with stripped-down, low-cost operations. One, calling itself “Church and Chapel Funeral Service,” contracts with conventional funeral homes to lower costs by doing the unthinkable—moving the service out of the mortuary to a church, a cemetery chapel, even a nursing home.

In 1994 Russ Harman launched Affordable Funeral Service in a Washington, D.C., suburb. Taking the low-cost approach to the extreme, he operates with no facilities outside his own home. He uses private residences, churches, or, if viewing the deceased is desired, a rented mortuary. The basic strategy, according to Ron Hast’s
Funeral Monitor
, is to keep overhead low. A white, unmarked van is used
instead of a hearse. There are no limos. Business is booming, with three vans patrolling the nation’s capital and lone vans in five other cities. Harman’s next project is to take the operation nationwide. Will Affordable Funeral Service be able to do it? It seems likely, since late word is that it has been swooped into the net of SCI, whose worldwide operations are the subject of
chapter 16
.

Is the funeral inflation bubble ripe for bursting? Back in the sixties, the American public suddenly rebelled against the trend in the auto industry towards ever more showy cars, with their ostentatious and nonfunctional fins, and a demand was created for compact cars patterned after European models. The all-powerful U.S. auto industry, accustomed to telling customers what sort of car they wanted, was suddenly forced to listen for a change. Overnight, the little cars became for millions a new kind of status symbol. Could it be that the same cycle is working itself out in the attitude towards the final return of dust to dust, that the American public is becoming sickened by ever more ornate and costly funerals, and that a status symbol of the future may indeed be the simplest kind of “funeral without fins”?

T
he sellers of funeral service have, one gathers, a preconceived, stereotyped view of their customers. To them, the bereaved person who enters the funeral establishment is a bundle of guilt feelings, a snob, and a status seeker. Funeral directors feel that by steering the customer to the higher-priced caskets, they are administering the first dose of grief therapy. In the words of the
National Funeral Service Journal:
“The focus of the buyer’s interest must be the casket, vault, clothing, funeral cars, etc.—the only tangible evidence of how much has been invested in the funeral—the only real status symbol associated with a funeral service.”

Whether or not one agrees with this rather unflattering appraisal of the average person who has suffered a death in the family, it is nevertheless true that the funeral transaction is generally influenced by a combination of circumstances which bear upon the buyer as in no other type of business dealing: the disorientation caused by bereavement, the lack of standards by which to judge the value of the commodity offered by the seller, the need to make an on-the-spot
decision, general ignorance of the law as it affects disposal of the dead, the ready availability of insurance money to finance the transaction. These factors predetermine to a large extent the outcome of the transaction.

The funeral seller, like any other merchant, is preoccupied with price, profit, selling techniques. Mr. Leon S. Utter, a former dean of the San Francisco College of Mortuary Science, has written, “Your selling plan should go into operation as soon as the telephone rings and you are requested to serve a bereaved family.… Never preconceive as to what any family will purchase. You cannot possibly measure the intensity of their emotions, undisclosed insurance, or funds that may have been set aside for funeral expenses.”

The selling plan should be subtle rather than high-pressure, for the obvious “hard sell” is considered inappropriate and self-defeating by industry leaders. Two examples of what not to say to a customer are given in the
Successful Mortuary Operation Service Manual:
“I can tell by the fine suit you are wearing, that you appreciate the finer things, and will want a fine casket for your Mother,” and “Think of the beautiful memory picture you will have of your dear Father in this beautiful casket.”

At the same time, nothing must be left to chance. The trade considers that the most important element of funeral salesmanship is the proper arrangement of caskets in the selection room (where the customer is taken to make his purchase). The sales talk, while preferably dignified and restrained, must be designed to take maximum advantage of this arrangement.

The uninitiated, entering a casket-selection room for the first time, may think he is looking at a random grouping of variously priced merchandise. Actually, endless thought and care are lavished on the development of new and better selection-room arrangements, for it has been found that the placing of the caskets materially affects the amount of the sale. There are available to the trade a number of texts devoted to the subject, supplemented by frequent symposiums, seminars, study courses, visual aids, scale-model selection rooms complete with miniature caskets that can be moved around experimentally. All stress the desired goal: “selling consistently in a bracket that is above average.”

The relationship between casket arrangement and sales psychology
is discussed quite fully by Mr. W. M. Krieger, former managing director of the influential National Selected Morticians association, in his book
Successful Funeral Management
. He analyzes the blunder of placing the caskets in order of price, from cheapest to the most expensive, which he calls the “stairstep method” of arrangement. As he points out, this plan “makes direct dollar comparisons very easy.” Or, if the caskets are so arranged that the most expensive are the first ones the buyer sees, he may be shocked into buying a very cheap one. A mistake to be avoided is an “unbalanced line” with too many caskets in the low price range: “The unbalanced line with its heavy concentration of units under $300 made it very easy for the client to buy in this area with complete satisfaction.”
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In developing his method of display, Mr. Krieger divides the stock of caskets for convenience into four “quartiles,” two above and two below the median price, which in his example is $400. The objective is to sell in the third, or just above median, quartile. To this end the purchaser is first led to a unit in this third quartile—about $125 to $150
above
the median sale, in the range of $525 to $550. Should the buyer balk at this price, he should next be led to a unit providing “strong contrast, both in price and quality,” this time something well below the median, say in the $375 to $395 range. The psychological reasons for this are explained. They are twofold. While the difference in quality is demonstrable, the price is not so low as to make the buyer feel belittled. At the same time, if the buyer turns his nose up and indicates that he didn’t want to go
that
low, now is the time to show him the “rebound unit”—one priced from $25 to $50 above the median, in the $425 to $450 bracket.

Mr. Krieger calls all this the “Keystone Approach,” and supplies a diagram showing units 1, 2, and 3 scattered with apparent artless abandon about the floor. The customer, who has been bounced from third to second quartile and back again on the rebound to the third, might think the “Human Tennis Ball Approach” a more appropriate term.

Should the prospect show no reaction either way on seeing the
first unit—or should he ask to see something better—the rebound gambit is, of course, “out.” “In” is the Avenue of Approach. It seems that a Canadian Mountie once told Mr. Krieger that people who get lost in the wild always turn in a great circle to their right. Probably, surmises Mr. Krieger, because 85 percent of us are right-handed. In any event, the Avenue of Approach is a main, wide aisle leading to the right in the selection room. Here are the better-quality third- and fourth-quartile caskets.

For that underprivileged, or stubborn, member of society who insists on purchasing below the median (but who should nevertheless be served “graciously and with just as much courtesy and attention as you would give to the buyer without a limit on what he can spend”), there is a narrow aisle leading to the
left
, which Mr. Krieger calls “Resistance Lane.” There is unfortunately no discussion of two possible hazards: what if an extremely affluent prospect should prove to be among the 15 percent of left-handed persons, and should therefore turn automatically into Resistance Lane? How to extricate him? Conversely, what if one of the poor or stubborn, possibly having at some time in his past been lost in Canada, should instinctively turn to the broad, right-handed Avenue of Approach?

The Comprehensive Sales Program Successful Mortuary Operation is designed along the same lines as Mr. Krieger’s plan, only it is even more complicated. Everything is, however, most carefully spelled out, beginning with the injunction to greet the clients with a warm and friendly handshake and a suggested opening statement, which should be “spoken slowly and with real sincerity: ‘I want to assure you that I’m going to do everything I can to be helpful to you!’ ”