Metaphors of Death: A Thematic Analysis of Personal Meanings

Abstract

The present study describes some of the meanings death holds for contemporary individuals. Twenty-six well-educated participants were given the Knapp metaphor inventory and asked to discuss the metaphors they chose as most closely reflecting their views of death. The results of a hermeneutic analysis of these discussions yielded three independent themes: death viewed negatively as a barrier to life's meanings, death viewed ambivalently as an essentially negative condition made acceptable by a variety of mitigating factors, and death viewed positively as a reinstatement or transformation of life's meanings. A correlational analysis comparing results produced by Knapp's original participants with those of the present group revealed significant stability in metaphoric choices over a thirty-year period. A further analysis evaluating the influence of religiosity on the meanings of death revealed that participants from church groups viewed death significantly more frequently as a transformation of life's meanings than did non-church participants who viewed it significantly more frequently as a barrier to life's meanings.