Week 8 Journal

Writing is an art that produces responses from its audiences. According to Morris, graveyards, like writing produces "overt responses to death reveal world views, cultural premises, manners of organizing, parsing, combining, interpreting and response to the world." Morris says that the various elements that go into organizing a graveyard are synonymous. Graveyards are strategically placed by churches and community centers so that there is a large population of people to view the memorial. These graveyards, serve a purpose and send a message that life is just preparation for death and that death is inevitable.

Walking through a graveyard, there are many things a person can notice and many feelings a person can feel. Based on the location, mood, landscape, and weather, graveyards can feel creepy, sad, or relaxing. Each different stone contains information and all of that information is unique to the person it's memorializing.

Considering a graveyard as a piece of everyday writing is an argument that could go either way. Some may say that, like a letter, each grave stone is unique with a specific purpose and a specific audience. Others may argue that the graveyard is not everyday writing because it is not commonplace. You need very specific things to occur in order for a grave to be produced. Someone needs to pass away, people need to organize the ceremony, and someone needs to create the gravestone.

Week 8 Journal

In death on display tombstones and other relics honoring the dead are considered to be everyday writing. Morris makes references to how the objects put in place to honor the dead reflect a lot about the person’s ethos. I agree with the extent that a person who sees the grave might be able to determine how rich and powerful the deceased person in question was, but not much more information can be determined than that by the average person. Morris also brings up the cultural aspect involved in burial and how tombstones and memorials can reveal a lot about a culture. Social distinctions can be made from the type of burial ground as Morris mentions that there are several different kinds.

                I personally disagree with the idea that tombstones, memorials, and other kinds of tributes to the deceased are forms of everyday writing. The perception that all gravestones are unique is incorrect. Think of all the graves dug for US soldiers that are simply decorated with a white cross and the fallen patriot’s name. The generality in cemetery designs (from what I’ve seen in the US) is quite apparent when they are compared with one another. The most unique burial sites would indisputably be the great pyramids in Egypt, but they would have to be considered far from everyday.

                I don’t believe the tombstones and memorials made for the dead encompass the rhetorical qualities that we as a class determined examples of everyday writing should have. I believe the actual act of the person dying to have a greater effect on people and create change. Just because the tributes to the dead relate to the event of the person dying does not give them association to the everydayness that the act of dying achieves.

Week 8 Journal

What does Morris and tombstones contribute to our understanding of everyday writing?

Morris sees tombstones as everyday writing. He states that it is there for the propose of separating the living and the dead, but as a memory. The memory can be interpreted by two audiences: the family viewing it and a memory of their loved ones lives, and outsiders as a memory to all of us that we should remember death because it is out fate.  He focuses on the purpose of graveyards to remind us that out bodies are ephemeral but these grave sights are forever. He also states that the placement of graveyards are there for people to see. Common places for graveyards are churches, towns, and cities which are all inhabited by humans. We are left to interpret the individuality of each stone by the name, shape, surrounding objects, and saying that were engraved that are unique to each person.  Grave sights that are displayed as a garden give us the inspirational view on death, that the death of one is life for many other things. Some of these graves contain eye catching structures to grab the attention of anyone passing by. Like other forms of everyday writing graves are have a purpose, have a specific location,  an audience and individual unique factors surrounding it.  

Week 8

What does Morris and tombstones contribute to our understanding of

everyday writing?                       

Morris contributes a view that memorials and tombstones are everyday writing. He expresses that memorials are designed to have an intended audience as well as a purpose for being formed. The audience for a tombstone is generally a family member or friends of the deceased that is being honored. The audience is also intended to be in a specific state when they are encountering the memorial, which is most likely, reminiscent or mourning. The purpose behind a tombstone is to commemorate or celebrate the life of a person who is no longer with us. There is no set format for how to set up a tombstone; the family or person who creates a tombstone can decide what to put on said tombstone and how it is arranged. The style of the tombstone itself also says a lot about the person. Some families have a specific style tombstone that is used to represent that family’s history where as a cross can represent religion or another type of tombstone can represent a background that they come from.

            Tombstones as a form of everyday writing may seem like a stretch from some of the other examples we have examined such as letters. However, if you think about the personal aspect of a tombstone and how no tow tombstones are exactly the same, even if the shape of the tombstones look the same the writing on them will be different or at least have a different personal meaning to the text. In that way a tombstone is an everyday writing, there is no set standard or form they are required to meet.  

Week 8

Every person has or will experience a death of someone they know and love. Death is a universal occurrence and so is the mourning that follows such tragedies. Gravescapes, memorials and the landscape surrounding them, is a form of communication. Morris says, "Gravescapes-memorials and the landscape contain- ing them-provide an ideal setting for unraveling such patterns of communication because each memorial is a sacred symbol given both to the deceased and to the living." Meaning that the memorials communicate the past to the people in the future. For example, a memorial on the side of the road tells passer bys how the person died and when. Then when people add flower and pictures and letters to the memorial they add to the conversation by expressing how greatly they were loved and by whom. The memorials may not have very many words but when studied it can be read. Due to the fact that there is not a lot of actually writing included, besides the basic information of who died and when, I do not believe memorials can be seen as everyday writing because they can be redone multiple times.

Week 8 Journal

The author of the article contributes to our understanding of everyday writing by (at first) explaining how we as humans think about death. The concept that we draw from personal backgrounds/experiences/beliefs generally will form our opinion on the subject of death. He then goes on to talk about tombstones. Although you need to get materials in order to create one, I do believe that tombstones are indeed a form of everyday writing. Similar to that of graffiti, they are on display, and sometimes they are within view of the general public. You can’t really argue with the author when he states that a tombstone is a “convenient place to dispose of the dead”. It certainly does serve as a deeper significance. Similar to how a scrapbook serves greater significance than just a bunch of colors and pictures slapped together, and similar to how graffiti often times is more than just a bunch of gibberish on some random wall or table. A tombstone serves as the memorial of one that has passed away. A tombstone means a lot to a select few people, just as a scrapbook may to some people and how people may gravitate towards a particular piece of graffiti on the street. Some of those things lead me to believe that a tombstone can in fact be considered a piece of everyday writing. 

Week 8 Journal

Morris contributes to our understanding of everyday writing by telling us that graveyards are a way of separating the living from the dead, and the living always know what graveyards are for because almost all graveyards look the same and serve one purpose:  house the bodies of the deceased. Each individual gravestone signifies the life of a person, sometimes with a quote or small explanation of who they were, which makes gravestones memorials. We automatically associate gravestones with death because we know what they are for, it is something we have seen before and can instantly recognize, which makes it everyday writing. Graveyards are always in a community, and some people pass one on their way to work or school every day. Others make it a habit to visit deceased loved ones to lay fresh flowers or water planted ones on the grave. My grandma in Germany waters the family grave every week, and so do many others that live in her village. Whether they personally know the residents of the grave or not, the flowers on the grave are always kept alive or replaced by new ones when they do not return the next spring. Morris talks about different types of grave markers, some being the classic round-topped headstone and others sculptures. Perhaps the people whose grave markers that are either sculptures or are large and made from expensive stone come from a family with money. If they did not they may have been very loved and their family decided they deserved a fancy headstone. Those with plain headstones might come from a family of little money or may have been disliked. What a person was like in real life can be reflected through their headstone, whether it is through what is written or simply the headstone itself. Graveyards speak volumes, and the pages are the gravestones inside.