Abstract
This chapter explores the notion of ‘bad death’ overlooked in much of contemporary literature within palliative care and the sociology of death and dying, which has conventionally concerned itself with and been devoted to developing or investigating the idea of ‘good death’. In the chapter, the author conceptually outlines five forms of ‘bad death’ – dying unexpectedly, dying unprepared/unresolved, dying painfully, dying alone and dying undignified – and illustrates and discusses each of them conceptually, theoretically and empirically based on insight from existing research. The purpose of the chapter is thus to shed light on the neglected ‘bad death’ and to show how a focus on avoiding ‘bad deaths’ may provide a fruitful pathway for arriving at some sort of ‘good death’ or ‘not so bad death’. Moreover, the chapters urges us to consider how instead of being professionally and academically preoccupied with ‘best practice’ as an ideal, we might ponder what can be learned from contemplating and studying ‘worst cases’ when it comes to death and dying.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Ariès, P. (1974). Western attitudes toward death from the middle ages to the present. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ariès, P. (1981). The hour of our death. London: Allen Lane.
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to do things with words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bauman, Z. (1992). Mortality, immortality and other life strategies. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Bauman, Z. (2003). Liquid love: On the frailty of human bonds. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Beagon, M. (2005). Mors repentina and the Roman art of dying. Syllecta Classica, 16, 85–137.
Berger, P. L., & Luckmann, T. (1966). The social construction of reality – A treatise in the sociology of knowledge. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.
Bloch, O. (1914). Om døden – en almenfattelig fremstilling [On death – A commonly comprehensible account]. Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel/Nordisk Forlag.
Carse, J. P. (1980). Death and existence: A conceptual history of human mortality. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Choron, J. (1972). Death and modern man. New York: Collier Books.
Costello, J. (2005). Dying well: Nurses’ experiences of ‘good and bad’ deaths in hospital. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 54(5), 594–601.
Counts, D. A., & Counts, D. (2004). The good, the bad and the unresolved death in Kaliai. Social Science & Medicine, 58(5), 887–897.
de Beauvoir, S. (1985). A very easy death. New York: Pantheon Books.
Dugdale, L. S. (Ed.). (2015). Dying in the twenty-first century: Toward a new ethical framework for the art of dying well. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Elias, N. (1985/2001). The loneliness of the dying. London: Continuum.
Ellis, C. (2005). ‘There are survivors’: Telling a story of the sudden death. The Sociological Quarterly, 34(4), 711–730.
Freud, S. (1915/1956). Thoughts for the times on war and death. In Sigmund Freud: Collected papers. London: The Hogarth Press.
Frith, H., Rainsborough, J., & Klein, O. (2013). Making death ‘good’: Instructional tales for dying in newspaper accounts of Jade Goody’s death. Sociology of Health & Illness, 35(3), 419–433.
Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1965). Awareness of dying. Chicago: Aldine.
Goffman, E. (1967). Interaction ritual. New York: Pantheon Books.
Goffman, E. (1974). Frame analysis – An essay on the organization of experience. New York: Harper & Row.
Gold, J. (2015, February 6). “Death in America is getting more painful”. The Atlantic.
Good, D. V., Mary-Jo, et al. (2004). Narrative nuances on good and bad deaths. Social Science & Medicine, 58(5), 939–953.
Hagger, L., & Woods, S. (Eds.). (2013). A good death? – Law and ethics in practice. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing.
Harrington, C. L. (2012). The ars moriendi of US serial television: Towards a textual good death. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16(6), 579–595.
Heidegger, M. (1927/1962). Being and time. London: SCM Press.
Holst, I. (2013). Pårørende søges. Odder: Forlaget Limbo.
Jacobsen, M. H. (2008). “Eleanor Rigby-syndromet – om alderdom, ensomhed og social død i den senmoderne verden”. In M. H. Jacobsen & M. Haakonsen (Eds.), Memento mori – døden i Danmark i tværfagligt lys. Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag, s. 95–118.
Jacobsen, M. H. (Ed.). (2013). Deconstructing death – Changing cultures of death, dying, bereavement and care in the Nordic countries. Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark.
Jacobsen, M. H. (2015). ‘Den dårlige død’ – fem former for uønsket død i det senmoderne samfund. Omsorg: Nordisk tidsskrift for palliative medisin, 32(3), 29–34.
Jacobsen, M. H. (2016). ‘Spectacular death’ – Proposing a new fifth phase to Philippe Ariès’s admirable history of death. Humanities, 5(2), 19.
Jacobsen, M. H. (Ed.). (2017). Postmortal society – Towards a sociology of immortality. London: Routledge.
Jacobsen, M. H., & Dalgaard, K. M. (2013). Two faces of death – ‘Good’ and ‘bad’ deaths in contemporary palliative care. In M. H. Jacobsen (Ed.), Deconstructing death – Changing cultures of death, dying, bereavement and care in the Nordic countries (pp. 309–330). Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark.
Kellehear, A. (2007). A social history of dying. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Klinenberg, E. (2001). Dying alone: The social production of urban isolation. Ethnography, 2(4), 501–531.
Ko, E., Cho, S., Perez, R. L., Yeo, Y., & Palomino, H. (2013). Good and bad death: Exploring the perspectives of older Mexican Americans. Journal of Gerontological Social Work, 56(1), 6–25.
Ko, E., Kwak, J., & Nelson-Becker, H. (2015). What constitutes a good and bad death? – Perspectives of homeless older adults. Death Studies, 39(7), 422–432.
Králová, J. (2015). What is social death? Contemporary Social Science, 10(3), 235–248.
Kristjanson, L. J., et al. (2001). Palliative care nurses’ perceptions of good and bad deaths and care expectations: A qualitative analysis. International Journal of Palliative Nursing, 7(3), 129–139.
Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying. New York: Routledge.
Leget, C. (2007). Retrieving the ars moriendi tradition. Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 10, 313–319.
Levine, S., & Levine, O. (1988). Who dies? – An investigation of conscious living and conscious dying. Bath: Gateway.
Lewis, M. J. (2007). Medicine and care of the dying: A modern history. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lobar, S. L., Youngblut, J. A. M., & Brooten, D. (2006). Cross-cultural beliefs, ceremonies and rituals surrounding death of a loved one. Pediatric Nursing, 32(1), 44–50.
McManus, R. (2003). Bad death: Sociology and the moral regulation of suicide in New Zealand. Unpublished PhD thesis, Massey University, New Zealand.
Morgan, J. D., & Laungani, P. (Eds.). (2003–2009). Death and bereavement around the world (Vol. 1–5). Amityville: Baywood Publishing.
Morris, D. B. (1993). The culture of pain. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Mulkay, M., & Ernst, J. (1991). The changing profile of social death. European Journal of Sociology, 22, 172–196.
Palgi, P., & Abramovitch, H. (1984). Death: A cross-cultural perspective. Annual Review of Anthropology, 13, 385–417.
Peräkylä, A. (1988). Four frames of death in modern hospital. In A. Gilmore & S. Gilmore (Eds.), A safer death: Multidisciplinary aspects of terminal care (pp. 41–45). New York: Plenum Press.
Quill, T. E., & Brody, R. V. (1995). You promised me I wouldn’t die like this: A bad death as a medical emergency. Archives of Internal Medicine, 155(12), 1250–1254.
Sandman, L. (2005). A good death. Maidenhead: Open University Press.
Scott, N. A. (1967). The modern vision of death. Richmond: John Knox Press.
Seale, C. (1998). Constructing death: The sociology of dying and bereavement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Seale, C. (2004). Media constructions of dying alone: A form of ‘bad death’. Social Science and Medicine, 58(5), 967–974.
Semino, E., Demjén, Z., & Koller, V. (2016). ‘Good’ deaths and ‘bad’ deaths: Narratives and professional identities in interviews with hospice managers. Discourse Studies, 16(5), 667–685.
Smith, R. (2014, December 31). Dying of cancer is the best death. The British Medical Journal. Available online at: http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2014/12/31/richard-smith-dying-of-cancer-is-the-best-death/
Sudnow, D. (1967). Passing on: The social organization of dying. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Sweeting, H. N., & Gilhooly, M. L. M. (1992). Doctor, am I dead? A review of social death in modern societies. Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 24(4), 251–269.
Teodorescu, A. (2015). Death representations in literature. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Thielst, P. (1994). Livet forstås baglæns, men må leves forlæns – historien om Søren Kierkegaard. Frederiksberg: Det lille Forlag.
Tolstoy, L. (1886/1981). The death of Ivan Ilyich. London: Bantam Books.
van Brussel, L., & Carpentier, N. (Eds.). (2014). The social construction of death – Interdisciplinary perspectives. London: Palgrave/Macmillan.
van der Geest, S. (2004). Dying peacefully: Considering good and bad death in Kwahu-Tafo, Ghana. Social Science & Medicine, 58(5), 899–911.
Walter, T. (1994). The revival of death. London: Routledge.
Walter, T. (1996). The eclipse of eternity: A sociology of the afterlife. London: Routledge.
Webb, M. (1997). The good death. New York: Bantam Books.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Additional information
Dedicated to the memory of Michael C. Kearl (1949–2015) – prominent sociologist of death and dying
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Jacobsen, M.H. (2017). ‘The Bad Death’: Deciphering and Developing the Dominant Discourse on ‘The Good Death’. In: Parvaresh, V., Capone, A. (eds) The Pragmeme of Accommodation: The Case of Interaction around the Event of Death. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55759-5_18
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55759-5_18
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-55758-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-55759-5
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)