What to wear for the afterlife

Novelist Philip Roth, describes a horrific nightmare in which his dead father returns dressed in a shroud and full of reproach (Roth 1991, 233ff): “He said, I should have been dressed in a suit. You did the wrong thing.’ ….All that peered out from the shroud was the displeasure in his dead face. And his only words were a rebuke: I had dressed him for eternity in the wrong clothes” This reflects a common predicament. To do the wrong thing when dressing a loved one for their final journey seems unthinkable, yet most people in the Modern West arrive at the point where they have to make such decisions in a state of almost total ignorance; they do not know what choices are available, what other people choose to do, or why. This paper uses survey responses from British funeral directors to provide some insight into this area. The responses are placed in historical context and considered in the light of traditional explanations for body styling, which include family pride, commercial exploitation, solace for the bereaved and afterlife beliefs. An alternative framework which interprets the styling of the dead body as the visual expression of a “good death” narrative is recommended.