Ways of Dying

The novel “Ways of Dying” revolves around the idea of death in everyday life. In the novel Toloki is a professional mourner and therefore sees death everyday. We can see that there is war in this society since most of the funerals he attends are brutal war related deaths. In one of the funerals he attends he meets an old friend whose name was Noria. Toloki always envied Noria because his father would always embrace Noria and reject him. Noria had lost her son and Toloki tries to console her. Death becomes a part of everyday life, Toloki needs death in his life to continue. "Death becomes me, it is a part of me. How will they know where to find me? How will my clients find me, Noria? (pg.115) I cannot live without death, Noria."(pg. 115) This sentence shows the importance of death in his life. He has earned to professionally mourn for others. It becomes him, making this his identity, death is the biggest part of his life that he can literally not live without it.