"The Good Short Life"

Death: Life's Greatest Taboo 

This graphic image illustrates the main purpose of Mr. Clendinen's essay "The Good Short Life". The author recognizes death as something that is taboo in society and aims to set his audience on the right track to overcoming this social barrier. 

( kuow.org )

Within the pages “The Good Short Life” by Dudley Clendinen, the reader is privy to the open and candid musings about life and death by a man who has been diagnosed with a degenerative disease and given a maximum of three years to live. It is with brutal honesty that the author shares details of his own condition, and expresses his wish to continue living only while he can maintain a respectable quality of life. Mr. Clendinen goes about describing the painful truths of his illness very frankly in order to reach the general masses of American society, whom he believes should be more comfortable discussing the reality of death and dying. As an accomplished journalist known throughout his life for his honest and controversial work, such as the book he co-wrote in 1999 on the gay rights movement in America, Clendinen is undoubtedly qualified to broach this subject based on his journalistic career. His own personal battle with ALS is all the more reason why his views are so relevant. The tone used in this piece is vital to ultimately achieving the author’s purpose of translating his realistic views on death to the American public. It would have been easy for the reader of a piece written by a man dying of an incurable disease to pity the author. However, Clendinen makes quite sure in “The Good Short Life” that this will absolutely not be the case with his work. He employs a casual and straightforward tone that leaves the reader seeing him as a regular person rather than just a victim of the illness. This allows the reader the room to respect his decisions and his overall message, rather than simply feeling sorry for him. In my opinion, the culmination of journalistic credentials, personal experience, usage of tone, and simple honesty got the author’s purpose across beyond any doubt. As a member of the American general public, Clendinen’s target audience, my eyes were definitely opened to the need for more acceptable and public acknowledgment of death in American society.