Jathzeel Olivares Professor Topf English 114B March 15, 2014 The Praise of Death Death is a for sure

thing, it will happen no matter what. To most, death is not sacred, life is. Life is treasured because its valuable, because there is only one chance to live life. And death is the end of it. Because of death the world has values, beliefs, ethics, morals, codes, norms and guidelines. But without death all that could change. And thats the case in The Postmortal, they have a cure for aging, which allows people to live longer or maybe forever. It doesnt eliminate death but its very similar to it. The people in the post mortal develop different values and see things different from present time. They no longer have to deal with death or fear it in some cases. Take away death and point of views change. The meaning of death is constantly changing throughout the book. With the value of death changing, the values of life and what it comes with also change. When death is taken out of the equation, people start seeing things differently. Subtract death, and you change the value of marriage, the value of religion, the idea of assisted suicide, the thought of having children, just society as a whole. The book states, Death is the only thing keeping us in line pg.13. If death keeps the human race in line, then getting rid of it will have a drastic impact. At one point in the book death takes over and becomes more valuable than life. The cure changes the meaning of death, and death changes everything. No more death no more

consequences. People look forward to dying they want to leave this world. Living on this planet is no longer valuable as it once was. When death is no longer an option for humans, values, ethics, morals, norms, codes, and guidelines all change. They change because death takes over for life, death become sacred. At the beginning of the book, people are still not accepting the cure. The pope labels it as a mortal sin and despises it. But why does the pope despise it? He advocates that This cure is an affront to the lord and his work pg.12. Death is avoided by taking the cure, therefore whoever has the cure is going against gods will. The pope states they are putting off the lords judgment and death is what makes us humble before god. Timothy Chappelle, an author for the New Black friars, asks the question of, Why would someone who really believes he is going to Heaven be afraid of death? This question can be asked to the catholic religion because the cure kind of prevents death. If this religion considers it a sin, then the true believers will stick to their beliefs and not get the cure. Without death, viewpoints change and people state, I saw religion as insurance against death pg.13. This is a perfect example of how specific religions believe in after life, and heaven like worlds. But since death is no longer an option, maybe religion isnt an option anymore either. Those who do not want to die will get the cure and be considered sinners. But to these types of people the afterlife is now, heaven is on this earth. Without death, what is the point of following rules and codes that were set by religion? This is the mindset of the people in the post mortal world. Since these people are no longer religious they start mocking it. The Holy Grail becomes this toy or item for people that get the cure. The grail is the cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper, and was also used to receive Christs blood. The Holy Grail was once sacred, it meant life at one point. But now people use it to drink alcohol out of it, they use it as a tool. They are mocking it, making fun of a religion because they are going against its will.

Death completely changed the meaning of marriage and loyalty because now you are stuck with the same person for maybe five hundred years. Death is no longer an option for some people. They will live for a very long time, and there is consequences and changes to that. Death has a big impact on Marriage because death sets a time limit. Since there is no time limit anymore the people in the post mortal world start to panic and reconsider their marriage. According to dictionary.com, marriage is a union established in various parts of the world toform a familial bond that is recognized legally, religio usly, or socially, granting the participatingpartners mutual conjugal rights and responsibilities. The Roman Catholic religion states that marriage is till death to them apart, but since death is no longer real people start freaking out. Death rearranges the meaning of marriage because people no longer want to be committed to one person if they are going to live forever. They are questioning themselves because they no longer feel they should stick to one person. A new term comes to play called cycle marriage, which is marry the person for a couple of years and if they enjoy it they can renew it and if they dont it ends. Death changed the viewpoints of people, since there is no more death, there is no need for commitment. Some people made a mistake in getting the cure like Johns father. He made it clear that getting the cure was a huge mistake and that he wanted to die. He was diagnosed with cancer, but he accepted it. He loved the fact that death was upon him. He did nothing to cure the cancer. At this point he values death more than he values life. Take away death, and population is raised. When population is raises, natural resources deplete. More people equal less space. So no space, no resources equal unhappy humans on earth. Basically since these people have the capability to live forever, at a certain point they will get fed up with living on this crappy world. Some of these people dont want to live anymore,

they just cant stand being on this planet with no space, no resources, living in crap, well some of them. And when the people dont want to be alive anymore, The cure for the cure is brought into use. At this point people want to die, but some of them are too scared to take away their own lives. Because of that, assisted suicide comes into place. Assisted suicide or euthanasia isnt accepted at first because of ethics and morals. People believe that its wrong in assisting someone that wants to take their life away. But then again, the circumstances that these people are in can be an acceptation to euthanasia. The subtraction of death changes peoples mind set. In this instance death takes away the value of life. People are now considering death over life. They rather die and not suffer any more than spend one more day on this planet. For example Chuck the Hippi, he was bored, he was living in a junkyard inside a van, smoking weed all day. He lost the excitement in living, he wanted to die. John starts working with a company, specifying in euthanasia, or assisted suicide. It is now a company, before the cure this would have never been accepted. In another example, this man is suffering from back problems. He is in constant pain and since he has the cure he has to deal with this pain for who knows how long. He is in pain every day, suffering, hating his life. Another example would be people that just dont want to live because they are tired of living, they feel their time is up and they have nothing else to live for. The 18 year old girl that John killed in ecstasy wanted to die because she had nothing else to live for. A very wealthy man wanted to die so his daughter can inherit all his money. All these people have reasons of why they want to die. They have different motives for their doing but one thing they have in common is that they want to leave this world. They are asking to be killed, they have chosen that path. But later on end specialization turns into hard specialization. Hard end specialization is a bounty, the government is in favor of this because they are the ones setting the bounty. If the government accepts this, and its not by choice, then it must be

okay. And if hard specialization is okay, then soft end specialization is widely accepted. Since the people being killed dont have an option in hard end, then assisted suicide is no longer look down on. Since the population has risen, people already on this earth will despise anyone who is coming in. Natural recourses are low, another person to support is look down on. Sonia is having another baby but she is afraid to show it, to tell people. She knows that she will be looked down on because its not something that is accepted anymore. It is already is happening in the present time. China has a one child policy, they are limiting how many new lives come into their country. With death rates lowering, population is getting out of control. In the US there is a virus killing people, but instead of taking them to the hospital they kill them if they dont have enough money to pay for the treatment. China isolates their country and ends up setting off a nuclear bomb from the inside. They killed their own because the population was so overwhelming. No more death and it creates chaos. Like I said earlier, no more death no more consequences. People turn into assholes, people kill not to assist but to make a point. People turn into trolls, making people suffer and annoy them. And the reasons for these peoples mind set is because death doesnt mean what is used to. The greenies are group of assholes, trolls that go running around making peoples life miserable. They mark peoples birth date on their victims bodies with a knife, they blind people, they hurt people. Randall Baines was a leader against the cure, he was pro death. He killed to make a point. According to him, Without death we dont learn a goddamn thing about life

pg.197. He said he was trying to help the world, but hes killing to make a point. He wants to show the world and the people, death is the reason why we are sane. The subtraction of death changed a whole society. From believing in religion, having ethics and morals, having values, valuing life in general. It created chaos, believing death is more valuable than life. Countries killed their own just to control population. People started to accept assisted suicide as something normal. The government set out bounties. Bringing a child into this world was look down on because there were already too many people. People for pro death killed to make a point. Marriage wasnt real anymore. Believing in a higher being or the afterlife was not real anymore. Death was more valuable than life. At one point people started to choose death over life. People were tired of suffering and wanted out. Not everyone but some of them. Life and Death have a completely different meaning in this world. They have switched meanings and that changed a society. When death is more valuable than life, the world becomes chaos.

Work Cited Berezow, Alex. "China's Disastrous One-Child Policy." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 25 Mar. 2014. Web. 25 Mar. 2014.

Chappell, Timothy. "The Fear of Death." New Blackfriars, 90.1028 (2009): 413-423.

Detrixhe, P. "Death and Religion in a Changing World." Sociology of Religion, 69.4 (2008): 498-500.

Magary, Drew. The Postmortal. New York: Penguin books, 2001. Novel.