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Katrina Garay

Mrs. Scharf

APEL Period 2

13 March 2017

She Would Have Enjoyed It

Death: the dark, closed door at the end of the illuminated tunnel of life. As the clock

inside a body ceases to tick, the time is up. What is left are the loved ones who mourn over the

lifeless corpses of the ones that they once knew, the ones that they have now lost, the ones that

they will forever cherish in their memories; they are now the ones who rest in scattered,

disintegrated remains or in bone piles in their graves. In his letter, She Would Have Enjoyed It,

George Bernard Shaw, however, breaks this normality as he remains awed and unafraid by the

cremation of his mother, yet his overflowing affection felt towards her remains alive in his spirit

despite the fact that she had passed away.

Shaws fascination and bewildered attitude in regard to his mothers cremation is

portrayed through the utilization of parallel structure in the beginning of his letter. To open,

Shaw states that people do not have the guts to watch a loved ones body face the fury of the

flames through the phrasing of: People think that that the door is the door of the furnace... and

People are afraid to see it... Shaw generalizes the usual responses of people, as they are

terrified, unwilling to face the reality of death and typically feel the one-sidedness of grief that is

bestowed upon them once death takes its toll. He then refutes those general assumptions by

adding on to the paralleled style, transforming those complete phrases into periodic sentences

with his own interpretations about incinerations. Shaw believes that cremation is wonderful and

it isnt as horrific as everyone perceives it and even emphasizes the beauty of a velvet coffin

which makes its way into the plain little chamber of cement and firebrick. Through the
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simplistic, casual diction of the chamber, this demonstrates that he is not frightened like

everybody else, but is intrigued and interested by the whole process of transporting a body into

it, not allowing this event to intimidate him. Shaw later explains that there was No heat, no

noise, no roaring draught, no flame [nor] no fuel spewing out of the enclosed space, but it

looked rather cool, clean [and] sunny. Unlike the usual mindset of an individual, the cremation

chamber is depicted as peaceful - as if it were a relaxing, tourist-infested vacation spot by

Shaw. The oven created for engulfing bodies allures him with its settle heat; the heat is even

compared to ribbons of garnet, making the cremation chamber unseemingly less demonic than

the fires of hell. It is sure that Shaw had now accepted the fact that his mother was gone by

hiding his intimate feelings of longing for her, but is joyful that her spiritual self will remain with

him even if her physical self will no longer be around. Through the use of parallel structure,

George Bernard Shaw is ready to accept the fate of his mother by admiring the procedure of her

cremation.