When it comes to dealing with grief there are very distinct gender roles. In a marriage or a relationship there is always the so-called strong one who never shows any emotion, which is usually the male. Then there is what people call the drama queen, who often lets her emotions control her entire life; more than likely this describes the woman in the relationship. In this poem, “Home Burial”, Amy and her husband fit these gender roles perfectly. They argue about the way grief should be express and fail to see it from the other’s point of view.
We learn that Amy’s sorrow began from the moment that she saw her husband “making the gravel leap into the air” (982) as he dug the grave. She believed through what she saw him do that he could have no “feelings” (982). This forces Amy to go to “somebody else” (983) and share her feelings instead of bonding with her husband, who also shares the loss, but remains unable to discuss it. Amy needs to express her feelings with somebody who feels her pain, and she thinks that her husband is not capable of doing such a thing. Later in the poem, she goes onto say that she doesn’t think that any man can do such a thing. This shows the way that many people perceive men to be unable to show their feelings as easily as women do. It isn’t as if they cannot feel, but it is that they have difficulty expressing their emotions as freely as women do. Part of this can be blamed upon the way that...
This blues poem discusses an incredibly sensitive topic: the death of Trethewey’s mother, who was murdered by her ex-husband when Trethewey was nineteen. Many of her poetry was inspired by the emotions following this event, and recounting memories made thereafter. “Graveyard Blues” details the funeral for Trethewey’s mother, a somber scene. The flowing words and repetition in the poem allow the reader to move quickly, the three-line stanzas grouping together moments. The poem begins with heavy lament, and the immediate movement of the dead away from the living, “Death stops the body’s work, the soul’s a journeyman [author emphasis]” (Tretheway 8, line 6). Like the epitaph from Wayfaring Stranger, Trethewey indicates that the dead depart the world of the living to some place mysterious, undefined. The living remain, and undertake a different journey, “The road going home was pocked with holes,/ That home-going road’s always full of holes” (Trethewey 8, line 10-11). Trethewey indicates that the mourning is incredibly difficult or “full of holes”, as she leaves the funeral and her mother to return home. ‘Home’ in this poem has become indicative of that which is not Trethewey’s mother, or that which is familiar and comfortable, in vast contrast to the definition of home implied in the
Loss. Grief. Mourning. Anger. Disbelief. Emotions are in abundance when a loved one passes away. People need to find a way to cope with the situations and often need to express themselves by writing their feelings down in order to get them out. This is exactly what Paul Monette does in his book of poetry title “Love Alone” in remembrance of his companion Rog. Through writing his poetry Monette describes his emotions and the events that occurred during Rog’s battle with AIDS. By Monette’s transitioning through different emotions, the reader begins to understand the pain the author is dealt. Touching upon Kubler-Ross’ five stages of death including denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance, Monette transitions to Rog’s decline in health. Using different fonts and no punctuation, the lines are interpreted by the reader using instincts to know when to begin and end a sentence. Evident in the poems “The Very Same”, “The Half-life”, and “Current Status”, Monette gives a description of loss that makes the reader tingle.
At some point in everybody’s life they feel the sorrow and anguish of losing somebody. The the stories “Nashville Gone to Ashes” and “When It’s Human Instead of When It’s Dog”, both a widow and widower are not able to move on with their life after the loss of their loved one. In both cases the mister and the widow both come to the conclusion that their significant other is not coming back leading them to find ways to cope with their deaths, move on and function the best they can with their lives.
The characters in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones are faced with the difficult task of overcoming the loss of Susie, their daughter and sister. Jack, Abigail, Buckley, and Lindsey each deal with the loss differently. However, it is Susie who has the most difficulty accepting the loss of her own life. Several psychologists separate the grieving process into two main categories: intuitive and instrumental grievers. Intuitive grievers communicate their emotional distress and “experience, express, and adapt to grief on a very affective level” (Doka, par. 27). Instrumental grievers focus their attention towards an activity, whether it is into work or into a hobby, usually relating to the loss (Doka par. 28). Although each character deals with their grief differently, there is one common denominator: the reaction of one affects all.
One topic explored is death, “The women in your family have never lost touch with one another. Death is a path we take to meet on the other side.” (194) Death may be one of, if not the worst tragedies in life, but here the narrator creates a perspective that beautifies the awful tragedy of death. The after life becomes a reunion for those who have passed. It almost conveys dying as a happening to look forward to, to be able to connect with the other women who to have passed away. This uplifting point of view adds hope for even those facing
In Katherine Mansfield’s “The Garden Party” and in D.H. Lawrence’s “Odour of Chrysanthemums,” two women were in a situation where death was literally at their feet. In “The Garden Party,” Laura finds herself contemplating the dead body of Mr. Scott, a man of lower class who lived at the bottom of the hill from her house. In “Odour of Chrysanthemums,” Elizabeth finds herself contemplating the dead body of her husband, Walter. Although the relationships these women shared with the dead men were completely opposite, they both had striking similarities in the ways that they handled the situation. Both women ignored the feelings of the families of the deceased, failed to refer to the deceased by name, felt shame in the presence of the deceased and both had a life and death epiphany. Although Laura and Elizabeth were in two similar yet very different situations, they both had contemplated the dead men, acted in similar ways, felt similar emotions and both ended up having an epiphany regarding life and death at the end of the story.
The author initially uses words with negative connotation, such “wild,” “storm of grief,” and “sank into her soul” (1), to suggest a normal reaction to the death of a loved one.
During the early seventeenth century, poets were able to mourn the loss of a child publicly by writing elegies, or poems to lament the deceased. Katherine Philips and Ben Jonson were two poets who wrote the popular poems “On the Death of My Dearest Child, Hector Philips”, “On My First Son”, and “On My First Daughter” respectively. Although Philips and Jonson’s elegies contain obvious similarities, the differences between “On the Death of My Dearest Child” and “On My First Son” specifically are pronounced. The emotions displayed in the elegies are very distinct when considering the sex of the poet. The grief shown by a mother and father is a major theme when comparing the approach of mourning in the two elegies.
Death in a family seizes control over the emotional and physical health of the surviving family. Facing death is difficult, but it cannot be ignored. The trauma may be an opportunity to grow from the experience, if it is talked about and discussed and worked through with the support of others; or it may throw a family off course, misdirecting their actions or leaving them altogether emotionally stagnant. Two families confront death differently in William Faulkner’s “A Rose For Emily,” in which a well-respected woman degenerates into a reclusive spinster after the death of her father, and in Brady Udall’s “The Wig,” a flash-fiction story about a son who wears a discarded wig that resembles the hair of his dead mother. These two stories offer very different portraits of families who try to recover after the death of a parent -- in Udall’s story, the mom; and in Faulkner’s, the father -- yet each story, through imagery, metaphor, symbolism, and their climaxes, comment similarly on the importance of communication after a devastating loss such as death.
Imagine that the person you love most in the world dies. How would you cope with the loss? Death and grieving is an agonizing and inevitable part of life. No one is immune from death’s insidious and frigid grip. Individuals vary in their emotional reactions to loss. There is no right or wrong way to grieve (Huffman, 2012, p.183), it is a melancholy ordeal, but a necessary one (Johnson, 2007). In the following: the five stages of grief, the symptoms of grief, coping with grief, and unusual customs of mourning with particular emphasis on mourning at its most extravagant, during the Victorian era, will all be discussed in this essay (Smith, 2014).
Robert Frost’s “Home Burial” is a very well written poem about a husband’s and a wife’s loss. Their first born child has died recently. Amy and her husband deal with their loss in two very different ways, which cause problems. Amy seems like she confines their child to the grave. She never seems to le go of the fact she has lost her first child. Amy’s husband buried their child himself. This allowed him to let go and live a normal life. Amy does not understand how he could do what he did. Therefore, she wants to have nothing to do with him, especially talk to him. He doesn’t understand why she can’t let go, and why she won’t talk to him. He tries to get her to tell him why, but she just wants to go to someone else. She will not talk to him or let him talk to her because he always speaks offensively. This lack of communication was there before the death, which I think will be the downfall of their marriage. Frost’s use of imagery and tone allow the reader to see and feel what Amy and her husband are going through.
A common feeling when a spouse loses his or her significant other is devastation like Mrs. Mallard initially felt when “she wept at once, with sudden, wild abandonment,” but then she began to feel free (Chopin 236). She expresses her feelings for freedom by repeating the word “Free! Body and soul free!” (237). She was exalting with glee as she came to more of a realization that her husband’s death meant “she would live for herself;” however, right after her celebration, her husband walked in the front door (237). This shocked Mrs. Mallard to the point of death, ending her emotional breakdown.
Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden is a short poem that illustrates the emotions that he is dealing with after the love of his life passes away. The tone of this piece evokes feelings that will differ depending on the reader; therefore, the meaning of this poem is not in any way one-dimensional, resulting in inevitable ambiguity . In order to evoke emotion from his audience, Auden uses a series of different poetic devices to express the sadness and despair of losing a loved one. This poem isn’t necessarily about finding meaning or coming to some overwhelming realization, but rather about feeling emotions and understanding the pain that the speaker is experiencing. Through the use of poetic devices such as an elegy, hyperboles, imagery, metaphors, and alliterations as well as end-rhyme, Auden has created a powerful poem that accurately depicts the emotions a person will often feel when the love of their live has passed away.
In the poem “Wife’s Lament”, the wife goes through a series of emotions that has occurred due to her isolation between her and her husband and also being unaware of why she is put in the position of being alone. She begins to reminisce on events from her past and often adds input on how it correlates to what she is feeling now. Although this poem is filled with sorrow, yearn and isolation, I believe this is a poem about repentance towards her husband. During this time period, women were only submissive to their husbands and that was the way things had to be. Women had no say in where and how they live their lives, where ever their husband went so did they.
Losing a loved one is one of the hardest experiences every person must go through. The experience does not end with the loss though, but begins with it. The loss of a dear person leads those left behind into a downward spiral of emotions and memories. A poem entitled “Lucy Gray” by William Wordsworth focuses on that loss and the emotions that follow it. By reading the poem one can objectively experience both the grief that Lucy Gray’s death brings on but also her parents’ acceptance of her death.