What does Morris and tombstones contribute to our understanding of everyday writing?
Morris contributes to our understanding of everyday writing because he divulges to us how tombstones connect the living and the dead through rhetoric. In his essay on graves, he speaks specifically about the communication that they offer to the living and about the constant reminders of how the people lying underneath the tombstone should be remembered. This consistency is a daily, everyday reminder to those who visit the graveyard that their loved ones lay there. This allows the reader of the tombstone to connect to the tombstone in a very real and very everyday (from what we've defined in class) way.
Tombstones are public, whether families and individuals want them to be or not. This creates a public communication between people who visit cemeteries and the people who created the tombstones for their loved ones who've passed. From what Morris says, the living (i.e. those who are viewers), in essence, then can respond to what is written on the tombstone, whether the tombstone says death should be praised or whether we should take each day and live it to the fullest. Tombstones then can become everyday to those who experience these emotions because they pass onto others the experiences they've had.
The original communication here is between the viewer and the rhetor of the tombstone. It initiates the same kind of rhetorical situation that a zine or a scrapbook has. It creates the situation for one to pass on their memories or their ideas to others, creating an everlasting loop of communication. And in some ways this becomes someone's family history or it becomes a culture to those involved with the communication about the tombstone. This situation obviously being the remembering of someone's death. The tombstone and it's rhetor establish patterns of communication that can last for generations.
I personally don’t consider tombstones to be everyday text. Although Morris mention the fact that they contain this rhetorical aspect which of course we seemed play a role in everyday writing. I still won’t consider tombstones to be hundred percent every day. My reason is because of the way they are constructed. I feel like the materials that are used would not be considered every day. As far as what the text contributes to our understanding of everyday writing I would say that the fact it talks about how the tombstones are a contention between the living and death and a reminder to those that are alive that there is more than just this life. Also the tombstones serve as a memorial to the love ones of those who are dead. And each tombstone has their unique characters. I also feel like the fact that tombstone can be consider an everyday piece make it clear that there is no limited on what can be consider an everyday text.
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