The Five Stages of Grief Four Levels
Four Levels of The Five Stages of Grief
- Linda Pastan
1.LITERAL COMPREHENSION :
Linda Pastan in this poem, elucidates Kubler-Ross' five stages of grief on the loss of her husband which represents the anxiety and bitter experience of married women.
When she lost her husband, she was suggested to go through the five stages of grief so that she could accept the truth easily. People said it was easy like learning to climb stairs after cutting off a limb. She followed the suggestion. The first stage was the denial of his loss. She denied his absence and supposed that he was with her. She laid the table for both for breakfast. She gave him the toast to eat but he didn't take it. She passed him the newspaper from his hand forcefully and started reading the headline herself which said that he had gone away. She started bargaining what she could give in order to get him back. Could she become silent instead of quarrelling? Could she stop writing and pay more attention to him? Before she decided she was depressed. Their relation was poor. The lock on the suitcase of their relation was broken which was tied with a string for a time being but it was useless. She feels that it was not necessary to tie the suitcase because there were bandages for the physical injury and bottles of sleep to soothe her mental injury.
She always hoped for improved relationship but that hope has become absurd. Her hope has died like her uncle whose middle name was also hope. After a year, she is still trying to maintain good relation but she falls down when she looks at his cruel face. She has forgotten the green color, a sign of life. She is climbing towards acceptance. It is quite important. It has become a special headline with capital letters. She accepts their separation. However she does not feel peace after acceptance. She still thinks of him because their married life still persists and this kind of grief or misunderstanding is a circular stair case in married life.
2.INTERPRETATION :
‘The Five Stages of Grief’ is trying to show the five stages of grief ie. denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. It’s about how a human behaves Passes through these stages.The lady in the poem might be grieving the death of her husband nut along with the stages. This poem also might be trying to tell us that the relation between the husband and the wife is not always stable. They can not always live happily compromising with reality.
3.CRITICAL THINKING :
The poem is very interesting to read to readers ,however some points of this poem is questionable.
1) Do five stages of grief really help to forget the dead person?
2) Is everyone goes through the five stages of grief when they lost a person in their life?
3) Is it possible to get back the dead person through bargaining?
4.ASSIMILATION :
This poem reminded me of the event when my friend’s brother died in a bike accident. His mom was crying so hard. She could not believe his son's death. She didn't eat anything for two days. But after two days we convinced her saying "life and death happened in everybody’s life. It is not in our hand. I think there is need of your son in the heaven, so the god called him." Later she accepted her son's death.
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