Beginning of Essay
George Bernard Shaw and His Short Story About the Cremation of The Narrator's In a written exerpt from a letter about the cremation of his mother, George Bernard Shaw recalls her “passage” with humor and understanding. The dark humor associated with the horri ....

Middle of Essay
.... chamber “looked cool, clean, and sunny” as by a graveside, and the coffin was presented “feet first” as in a ground burial. In selecting aspects of a traditional burial service, Shaw's mood is revealed as ambivalent toward cremation by imposing recalled fragments of ground burial for contrast. Strangely fascinated, he begins to wonder exactly what happens when one is cremated. This mood of awe is dramatized as he encounters several doors to observe in his chronological investigation. He sees “a door opened in the wall,” and follows the coffin as it “passed out through it and vanished as it closed,” but this is not “the door of t ....