英文摘要 |
Death is a universal cultural fact among all peoples. Besides many socio-cultural discourses about death, there are various funeral rites and complex taboos to handle and regulate it. Meanwhile, death, ghosts and other related matters constantly arouse fear, anxiety, unease, or uncomfortable feelings among people. Cross cultural studies about death have analyzed the presentation and function of death or funeral rites. They assert that death is not only a natural phenomenon, but a cultural one which coexists with themes of ritual and taboo, and modes of burial and mourning. Similarly, this research maintains that the fear of death is just like death itself; it is not only a biological phenomenon, but also a cultural one. This research examines the experience of funeral home workers, who frequently have contact with the dead. Through participant observation and in-depth interviews with six workers at a local funeral parlor in Hualien City, Taiwan, the author analyzes their feelings and correspondent behaviors regarding death-related events and other things, in order to understand how they face their emotions, which they cannot eschew occupationally and which form part of the emotional experience of their daily lives, including their psychological states, processes and adaptations. The author finds that among the six workers, the more senior they are, the less fear they have. However, while the more junior staff experience more fear or “weird” feelings, the senior workers can explain and address their means of coping with the job and teach the junior staff members how to relieve their fear. By inquiring into their psychological processes, the author finds that the workers’ attitudes toward death-related matters are not entirely without fear. However, they have certain practices to minimize this fear so that it does not affect their day-to-day work. The success or failure of these practices determines if they can remain in this occupation or not. These practices consist of a set of mechanisms closely related to the transformation of perception, the application of magic and the bodily experience of essentially coming to no harm. We might argue that these mechanisms constitute a worldview, encapsulating an ethos, and furthermore, by way of personal experience, thus nurture “techniques of the emotion.” These techniques enable funeral home workers adjust their habits and create a calm skill to cope with the dead body. In this case study, the author further investigates the cultural construction aspect of emotion, and suggests that the behavior, thinking, perception, and sensation of fear are not based on human physical nature. Therefore, this study rejects the theoretical dualism of emotion and cognition, feeling and thought, the conscious and the unconscious. This study suggests that individual emotions are correlative to “cultural classification system” constructed jointly by symbolic classification, order and meaning. This article consists of four parts. The first part explains the “feeling of horror” and “the horrible feeling of death” followed by the literature review. The second part introduces the studied funeral home and general working conditions of its workers, followed by interviews with the six funeral workers. The third part explores whether the feeling of horror is acquired or innate, as well as distinguishing the different feelings of horror of the six workers. There then follows the worldview or cultural classification behind these feelings of horror that manifest concepts of order and meaning. The fourth part is the conclusion which points out how funeral home workers construct a worldview, encapsulate an ethos, as well as cultivate “techniques of the emotion,” through their bodily experiences, which correspond to their occupational requirements. |