TOW #4—Smoke Gets in your Eyes by Caitlyn Doughty

Lindsay Klenk

TOW #4—Smoke Gets in your Eyes by Caitlyn Doughty

                Smoke Gets in your Eyes by Caitlyn Doughty is a memoir depicting Doughty’s time as a mortician in America. She shares how she found out about the job, the experiences she had, and what it taught her as a person. Now, Doughty is a licensed mortician who utilizes youtube and her novel to modernize and update the public’s view of death and the dead.

                In her memoir, Doughty talks about many heavy and dark events that took place during her time as a mortician. Much of these events are incomprehensible for the people who didn’t experience it; her audience. She helps to bridge this gap of understanding by utilizing metaphors. Doughty compares the crematory to the depths of hell (Doughty 13) while completing her first cremation. She also uses metaphors often when explaining her corpses appearance, helping the public understand the emptiness in their eyes or the lifelessness of their lips. This figurative language allows the audience to gain insight into the challenges of Doughty’s work and the seriousness of what she had to do. It also relates the corpses to familiar things, allowing the public to realize how important a mortician’s work is, aiding in Doughty’s purpose.

                Though it is imperative for Doughty to demonstrate the importance of her job, it is equally important for her to comfort and support her audience as they discover the horrors of death. She admits that her topic is often feared and shown in the wrong light. In her book, she utilizes personification as a way to redefine death. She often states that death brought her something or warns her of what she may see. As is the definition of personification, death is given human attributes and qualities, allowing her audience to view death in a more familiar, and thus comfortable, way. This allows their view to change from the horrors they had previously been taught to a natural comfort that awaits everyone when their time comes. Although this book may not seem important, Doughty uses smooth figurative language to redefine what death means.