Ortiz 1

Katherine Ortiz
Professor Beadle
English 115
30 September 2017

The Monster of Death

The monstrous part about dying is when you are already dead, because that is when

people begin to mention things they had no courage to say when you were alive. We all strive to

prevent bad rumors from getting spread about us, and even try to become superior to others

because we care what people think. Even though others might disagree with this point, they need

to consider the fact that one day, at some point, they cared. When youre dead lying in your

casket, at the funeral, that is when the monsters come out of the shadows. People will begin to

speak out of term, some might even laugh, and others will mourn in the only way they know

how. This space would only be considered monstrous to the person who sits in the back of the

funeral and doesnt say a word; the observer.

Have you ever heard of the saying, Its always the quiet ones, in this case, the one in

the back with nothing to say at the funeral was me. I was the one who looked at everyones

reactions and noticed their monsters. A while back ago, I attended a church group that would

meet at an old couples house every Friday night. Every Friday night for a couple of months, I

saw the old couple care for every person that stepped inside their home with loving arms. The

wife of the house was on a wheelchair and was not able to move very much because she had to

get her leg removed therefore, had a prosthetic leg. Despite her condition, she never missed a

greeting or a goodbye from anyone. Sadly, she soon passed away of lung failure and everyone

attended her funeral. At the funeral I was in the back of the room not knowing what to feel in

that moment because it all happened too quickly.

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Everyone in this funeral spoke about this woman and Im not talking about when people

grab the microphone and speak in front of everyone, they all spoke softly amongst themselves

revealing their true feelings towards her. I heard people in the back about that one time when

she was mean to them and she never apologized, or when, she gave me a dirty look when I

came over once, and it surprised me that not one respected her death long enough to say

anything nice. We believe in order to get closure we may just speak out term at someones

funeral with rude commentaries but we must respect the dead no matter their faults when they

were alive. People nowadays have nothing positive to say about anyone, they only know how to

criticize. The truth behind the monster is that we dont respect one another, because if we did

rumors wouldnt be started and they wouldnt be repeated.

Chuck Klosterman wrote an article called, My Zombie, Myself: Why Modern Life Feels

Rather Undead, that explained how zombies are not difficult to kill however, they are never

ending once they arrive. Once rumors spread about you theyre a little difficult to stop because,

the zombies will never stop coming (Klosterman 41). Rumors will never cease to exist similar

to the concept Klosterman wrote about the zombie apocalypse however, it does not mean we

cant try to stop them, We live to eliminate the zombies of tomorrow (Klosterman 42). On one

hand zombies are infinite in number, but on the other hand we survive to kill them all and isnt

that what we try to do when a rumor is spread about us?

Rumors can be viewed as when you are required to do group work because when you do

group work everyone has different opinions to whatever topic you are talking about. Lets say

your topic are zombies, one might say zombies are easy to kill while others say it is difficult.

Other people have different perspectives and opinions of the same topic just like you. Elizabeth

Losh, Jonathan Alexander, Kevin Cannon, and Zander Cannon wrote a novel called,
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Understanding Rhetoric that explains and describes all sorts of ways to create essays. Their

views on group work is that it may not always work out as planned. Some people might want to

be superior to others so they wont feel picked on, One person wants to boss everyone around,

(Losh 195). People want to feel superior to others so that they wont be picked on by anyone

else. When youre the boss of everyone nobody can speak badly of you because you have the

power. If anyone decides to say anything about you they may utilize their power thus leaving

you no other choice but to keep your mouth shut. Once the superior are dead, however rumors

will be inevitable.

We care what people think and this is universal fact we all know is true. Whether we

want them to think highly of us or we want to feel accepted, one way or another we look for

other peoples approval of mostly everything we do. When people do certain things in life such

as get a good career like a celebrity we do this so people will remember us when we die. We

want to be remembered as some huge idol who did something everyone knew about. Sometimes

we are remembered as doing something extremely evil such as Hitler and other times we are

remembered of doing something revolutionary such as Martin Luther King Jr. How we want to

be remembered is completely our choice but how people will view us we have no control over

and that is the monster. You can think of yourself as the best person on the planet but it will not

change the perspective of what others might think of you.

Death is inevitable and demands to be felt, this is why people express their true feelings

once a person is no longer alive. To laugh at someones funeral may be a way of mourning them

as well. Sometimes people have a reaction to death, some might laugh, cry, be in shock, feel

angry, or even sleep for long periods of time. The husband of the wife that passed away was

haunted in his house because he still felt his wifes spirit. He felt so alone afterwards that he
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decided to not sleep alone for a while. As you might have guessed everyone spread rumors about

this situation as well. People spread mean rumors about his wife seeking revenge when maybe

her spirit just wanted to let him know she was okay and in peace.

The value of life must never be ignored for this very reason. The reason of which we find

ourselves in a situation where we find approval. Even though we might think that we dont care

about what others may say after we die we subconsciously find approval from someone

somewhere. We care because we are selfish and want to be recognized and remembered of

something more than just a corpse in a casket. We expect greatness from ourselves so others will

imitate that same perspective when we do die.

The monsters that creep around in this world are the ones found at funerals when nobody

can hear them. Speaking about a dead person when you didnt have the audacity to say it while

the they were still alive is very cowardly action and should not be tolerated. The observer or the

quiet one at funerals tend to hold the monster detector and can see everyones evil doings by just

listening to them gossip. The monsters are the ones society has created by making it a human

instinct and reaction to say what we assume rather than confront the person while theyre still

alive rather than dead. Theres a monster about but we must close our eyes and avert it.
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Works Cited Page

Hoffman, Andrew J. Monsters: a Bedford Spotlight Reader. Bedford/St. Martin's, a

Macmillan Education Imprint, 2016.

Losh, Elizabeth M., et al. Understanding Rhetoric: a Graphic Guide to Writing.

Bedford/St. Martin's, 2017.