Semansky, author of the poetry collection Death, but at a Good Price, publishes widely in the field of twentieth-century culture and literature. In the following essay, he considers the idea of the "good death" in Design for Dying.

Dying the "good death" has long been a topic of study for sociologists: how people behave during their last days is seen by society as a marker of how they lived. Popular wisdom has it that the response of the dying to death's call embodies his or her character. In his book Dying of Cancer: The Final Year of Life, Allan Keelehear summarizes the various kinds of behavior that have characterized the good death in different cultures and historical periods. These behaviors include the "Good Christian Death" of the European Middle Ages and the "Good Warrior Death" of ancient Greece. However, according to Keelehear, "Today, the ideology behind the...