Death and Society in Twentieth Century America

Abstract

American attitudes and responses toward death have changed markedly during the twentieth century. This transformation is illustrated through an examination of two age groups: those born prior to the advent of the atomic bomb, and those born into the nuclear age. Each cohort contended with very different patterns of environment and socio-historical experiences, and had differential life expectancies as well. Images of death have changed significantly over this time-span, partially because of the pervasive influence of television and the overall growth in the importance of media. Death's presence in the media is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere; it is at once illusively fantastical and frighteningly real. Today's youth face the threat of a sudden anonymous death that is counterpoised against a more immediate experience with death that often is either distorted or denied. It is within this context that America's youth express their fears and frustrations in music, drugs, violence, and vicarious death experiences. The research agenda should include investigation of such phenomena as the rising interest in spirituality and the increase in suicide among adolescents as possible symptoms of despair in an impersonal and threatened world.