The Life Work of Juan Diaz story
Juan Diaz is dying and penniless. His last wish is that he can provide financial security for his family. About a year later, a gravedigger named Alejandro exhumes Juan's corpse to make room in the cemetery. He has it mummified and stores it in a crypt with a number of other mummies. Juan's wife, Maria, discovers Alejandro's plan and steals Juan's body. She hangs it in the house and tells tourists that it is an authentic Mexican mummy. Money from the tourists pays for food and clothing for Maria and her three children. Eventually, however, Maria is overcome by the ghoulishness of what she has done. She begs for forgiveness, but a gleam in the eye of the corpse's body reveals that Juan approves of what she has done. Directed by: Norman Lloyd. Story by: Ray Bradbury (story).
17 total · 10 major · 7 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| coping with the death of a parent | major | Juan's son, Jorge, grieved his father. |
| coping with the death of a spouse | major | Maria mourned mourned her husband's death. |
| father and son | major | Little Jorge grieved his father's death. |
| human occupational activity | major | The story concerned the avaricious shenanigans of a blackmailing undertaker. [gravedigger] |
| husband and wife | major | Maria lost her husband to some type of illness. |
| mother and son | major | The widow Maria was caring for her young son, Jorge. They carried off Jorge's father mummy together. |
| obsession | major | The gravedigger Alejandro had a morbid fascination with death. He went a bit bonkers when one of precious mummies was purloined by its widow. |
| reclusiveness | major | The gravedigger Alejandro had a morbid fascination with death. He shunned human contact, preferring to be in the catacomb with his precious mummies. |
| the afterlife | major | Although the exact concerns weren't made explicit one gathers that Juan Diaz's own, and his family's, concern for how his corpse was interned had something to do with how they perceived he had a posthumous existence. Juan's son and his widow both spoke to the mummified corpse and saw it respond by it's eyes seemingly coming to life. |
| what it is like to be impoverished | major | Juan and his family were so poor that they couldn't afford to keep his body in a proper grave. |