Farewells by the Dying: A Sociological Study

Abstract

This article presents a sociological description and analysis of farewell conduct in an Australian sample of 100 terminally ill cancer patients. Farewells already made before the research interviews and those that were desired and planned are outlined. Sociological functions which can be surmised from this conduct are discussed. The decision not to farewell and the reasons underlying this choice are examined. Eighty-one percent of the respondents reported a desire to farewell. Most expressed a desire for these to take place late in the course of their dying. Important to the timing of farewells were considerations concerning: 1) the nature of certain relationships; 2) the physical proximity to these; and 3) the type of farewells desired. Prominent in preferred styles of farewells were the gift, the conversation, and the letter.

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Oxford English Dictionary: A New Dictionary on Historical Principles, Clearendon Press, Oxford F74, 1933.

Knapp

M. L.

Hart

R. P.

Friedrich

G. W.

Shulman

G. M.

The Rhetoric of Goodbye: Verbal and Non-Verbal Correlates of Human Leave Taking, Speech Monographs, 40, pp. 182–198, 1973.

Fieweger

Smilowitz

Relational Conclusion through Interaction with the Dying, Omega, 15:2, pp. 161–172, 1984–85.

Morgenstern

Reliving the Last Goodbye: The Psychotherapy of an Almost Silent Patient, Psychiatry, 43:3, pp. 251–258, 1980.

Meares

R. A.

On Saying Good-bye before Death, Journal of the American Medical Association, 246:11, pp. 1227–1229, 1981.

Rubenstein

J. S.

Preparing a Child for a Good-bye Visit to a Dying Loved One, Journal of the American Medical Association, 247:18, pp. 2571–2572, 1982.

Kellehear

S. A.

Good Death: The Social Life of the Dying Person, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 1986.

Hinton

Dying, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1967.

Witzel

Behaviour of the Dying Patient, British Medical Journal, 2, pp. 81–82, 1975.

10.

Veatch

R. M.

Tai

Talking About Death: Patterns of Lay and Professional Change, in

The Social Meaning of Death. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Service, 447, pp. 29–45, R. Fox (ed.), 1980.

11.

Hays

Statistics, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1981.

12.

Kalish

R. A.

Reynolds

D. K.

Death and Ethnicity: A Psychocultural Study, Baywood Publishing Company, Amityville, NY, 1981. Reprinted from University of Southern California Press, Los Angeles, 1976.

13.

Simmel

Note on Faithfulness and Gratitude, in The Sociology of George Simmel, Wolff

K. H.

(ed.), Free Press, New York, 1950.

14.

Malinowski

Magic, Science and Religion, Souvenir Press, London, 1948.

15.

Berger

P. L.

Luckmann

The Social Construction of Reality, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1975.

16.

Michalowski

R. J.

Jr.

The Social Meanings of Violent Death, Omega, 7:1, pp. 83–93, 1976.

17.

Vollman

R. R.

Ganzert

Picher

Williams

W. V.

The Reaction of Family Systems to Sudden and Unexpected Deaths, Omega, 2, pp. 101–106, 1971.

18.

Kalish

R. A.

Dying and Preparing for Death: A View of Families, in New Meanings of Death, Feifel

(ed.), McGraw Hill, New York, pp. 215–232, 1977.

19.

Marshall

V. W.

Last Chapters: A Sociology of Ageing and Dying, Brooks Cole, Monterey, 1980.

20.

Aries

The Reversal of Death: Changes in Attitudes toward Death in Western Societies, in Death in America, Stannard

D. E.

(ed.), University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, pp. 134–158, 1975.

21.

Aries

The Hour of Our Death, Allen Lane, London, 1981.