The passing of a loved one evokes a dark feeling of sadness and death in the minds of many humans. It is the all-too-clear memory of a funeral, a burial, a reunion, and most importantly a final and absolute goodbye. Between sending man to outer space and developing weapons of mass destruction, present-day society has accomplished immeasurable amounts of cultural accomplishments. The one task that the culture has yet to accomplish is preparing humans for the death of themselves or loved ones. Death, for most normal humans, is a heartbreaking and melancholy realization that no one lives forever, and that this person will never (or not for a long time) see the person who has just left this earth. The speaker, on the other hand, exhibits a merry behavior and reaction to the seemingly magical cremation of his mother demonstrating that he clearly has a large affection and love for his mother. He experiences this traditionally ghoulish spectacle in a celebration of life as a humorous event in which he conveys his deepest love for his mother. The speaker masterfully uses literary devises, revealing his lighthearted and loving attitude toward his mother and his overjoyed and humorous view of her cremation.
             The speaker refers to several allusions within the passage and personifies numerous entities during the cremation process. The allusions weaved within the passage are primarily related to biblical and religious ideas/passages. The first line of the passage is within the standard funeral and burial passages for a religious death. "There was a little alteration of the words..." shows that the woman was not buried traditionally, but cremated. There is also an allusion, when describing the flames that engulfed his mother, to "Pentecostal." This is a religious reference from when, in the Bible, the Apostles journeyed to the Pentecost. The word relates to the Holy Spirit and its descent upon the disciples. This ...