From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death

Content Warning: This section discusses death, abortion, and funeral practices.

Doughty is the author and first-person narrator of From Here to Eternity. However, she de-centers herself in the book, instead focusing on the practices of other cultures. The strongest emotional reactions that Doughty relates about her journey are relatively brief. Occasionally, she expresses jealousy about the funerary technology she witnesses. For instance, at the corpse hotel Lastel, Doughty whispers into an audio recorder, “I want it I want a corpse hotel I want one” (175). This reaction typifies most of Doughty’s emotional reactions to Cultural Diversity in Death Practices—they are largely positive and enthusiastic.

Doughty shifts from her positive tone when she questions her role in the thanotourism industry and wonders whether her actions are culturally acceptable. For instance, Doña Ely hands Doughty the mummified head of Sandra, a ñatita. As Doughty’s friend Paul takes pictures of her with Sandra’s head, he tells Doughty not to look “so dour” and to look “a little less melancholy” (193). Doughty replies, “This is a human head. I don’t need pictures of me grinning with a severed human head” (193). She explains that her solemnity is due to her feelings of respect for the dead and for the culture that observes these practices.