The Business of Death in Matheson's The Funeral

Richard Matheson was a genius of descriptions, and in his short story "The Funeral" he certainly delivers.

Some of the ones that stuck with me while reading "The Funeral" were the images of Morton Silkline with his "liver-colored eyes" and "a smile of funeral welcome on his lips." Matheson instantly, with those small yet powerful descriptions, tells me that Silkline is a cold man, a business man, and associated with death in more ways than one.

A few sentences down, when Silkline meets the vampire Asper (love that name), and a business opportunity presents itself, the description switches from "liver-colored eyes" to "cinnamon eyes," which is a much warmer description, and it lets us know Silkline is a man who warms up from his cold demeanor when business presents itself. Moneymoneymoney.

Between the flowery prose is a story that intrigued me with its approach to death with a kind of dark humor. We think of funerals as a goodbye, as a way to send off someone we loved in a nice, proper fashion. Why do we do this? Because we are humans, and humans do strange, insane things. Other creatures don't put the remains of their dead in a wooden box or burn them to crispy ashes and throw them in an urn, but for some reason we do.

Matheson's story has a bit of fun pointing out the whole business of a funeral, and Silkline represents the fact that if there's a way to make money from something, then someone is going to make a business and profit from it. When did we go from building our own wooden boxes for dead bodies to making the whole thing a concept of competitive commercialism. (My funeral is going to totally be better than yours.)

Social commentary aside, the story is the perfect, short length to make its point, give us a chuckle, and still be in awe of Matheson's writing style and ability to draw the reader in. Funerals aren't supposed to be funny, and usually they are not while attending them, but reflecting back on the idea that, hey my dead loved one's body is in a box under the ground, kind of has an odd humor to it in that sick way we horror writers and readers do tend to chuckle at these morbid things.

And the fact that a vampire comes back from where ever he was to plan his funeral to his own liking is hilarious. It makes the comment that hey, go ahead and plan someone's funeral, but they probably would have done something different, and also lets us as readers laugh at the circus Silkline puts himself in the center off. He passes out and later finds himself more business from something even stranger than the vampire, and with a touch of the gold coins, he welcomes the monster into his business.

"Morton Silkline looked up as something entered his office.

He would have chosen to leap back screaming and vanish in the flowered pattern of the wallpaper but he was too petrified. Once more gape-mouthed he stared at the huge, tentacled, ocher-dripping shapelessness that weaved and swayed before him.

'A friend,' it said politely, 'recommended you to me." -Matheson "The Funeral"

Well, at least it was polite.