Examples Of Grief In The Piano Lesson

As the conflict between them builds, the ghost of Sutter seems to grow stronger until it attacks Boy Willie. He wrestles it, but he begins losing. That battle with Sutter's ghost seems to allegorize the struggle between the white master and the black slave throughout generations, ending with the slave crushed under the master’s boot. Berniece ends the fight when she finally plays the piano, calling upon her ancestors to assist the family. “I want you to help me, Mama Berniece…” she sings, addressing the dead. When Sutter is banished, Boy Willie understands that the piano serves as the family legacy incarnated. It’s an artifact and record of the family's history under slavery. Before leaving, he warns his sister of further conflict to keep playing on the piano, or he and Sutter may come back.

Although this is the final stage, not everyone who loses a loved one reaches this stage. Some people may not be able to move past the anger and denial that they experience. The people who reach this stage of grief are not in a state of depression, but they are also not in a state of happiness. In the novel, Susie’s father, Jack Salmon, says, “Last night it had been my father who had finally said it, ‘She’s never coming home.’ A clear and easy piece of truth that everyone who had ever known me had accepted. But he needed to say it, and she needed to hear him say it.” (p. 289). The loss that people experience will forever be a part of their lives. Just because they have accepted the fact that their loved one is no longer with them does not mean that they no longer feel the pain of the loss. Acceptance of the loss of a loved one simply means that those who are affected by this loss are ready to try to move on, to try to carry on life without the person that they have lost.

From the very beginning of the drama, a ghost walks the parapet of Elsinore Castle in Denmark and asks for Hamlet for revenge. Horatio, a friend of Hamlet, saw a ghost who resembled the dead king of Denmark who wanted to take revenge of his unlawful death. His brother Claudius not only inherited the throne illegally by killing his own blood brutally and got married the widow queen, Gertrude to save the throne. Claudius was a power monger and he got that by hook or crook.

have a great relationship with Boy Willie. Once Lymon notices the piano and tells Boy Willie, this is where the drama begins. Boy Willie tells Lymon that he wants to sell the piano because he thinks it is worth a lot of money. Doaker already knows that Berniece will not let him sell the piano because of the significance it has within the family. Another reason Berniece does not want to sell the piano is because her daughter, Maretha, is learning how to play it. Boy Willie does not care if she is learning it. He would rather want her to learn how to play the guitar, instead of the piano. This causes more problems because he wants the money to buy land from Sutter. He would rather sell the piano and use the money to buy land from Sutter. The

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” This quote from Rumi has a great irony in the play Hamlet written by William Shakespeare. When Hamlet’s father dies, he returns as a ghost and asks Hamlet to take revenge for his death. There is a question, however, if Hamlet’s father really did come, or it was just part of his grieving process. There is a constant battle throughout the play regarding the naturalness of certain aspects of Hamlet’s grief. In the play Hamlet, Shakespeare uses the five stages of grief in humans to show natural grieving can be shown through revenge and suicide.

When incarcerated, many prisoners crave interaction with those outside the cold walls of their cell. Some, however, remain bitter and unwilling to venture any connection to outside society. Imprisoned in a Louisiana penitentiary, wrongfully accused of homicide, Jefferson in Ernest J. Gaines’s A Lesson Before Dying lives out his last days before execution isolated from the outside world. This all changes, however, as the actions of family and friends give Jefferson the opportunity to express himself as well as a newfound friendship. Jefferson’s connections to the world outside, to nature, and to his family and friends are depicted through symbolism throughout A Lesson Before Dying. Gaines’s utilization of symbolism over the course of his

The five stages of grief shape the way one deals with a loss. Denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are the stages that generically follow the death of a loved one. Outsiders may not understand the need for these steps and force a griever back into daily life (Axelrod). In Catcher in the Rye, Holden endures many of the stages when he grieves for Allie, his little brother. Although it seems Holden never reaches any sort of closure or letting go, his voice in the novel gives clues of acceptance. The novel suggests that stages of the grieving process can be skipped over entirely, or other stages can be drawn out for much longer than expected. Friends and family attempt to push Holden back into society, but this only

Throughout the play, Gertrude’s honour is constantly attacked and damaged. Following the death of her beloved husband, a hasty marriage to her former brother-in-law, Claudius, commences. “Although the memories of my dear brother Hamlet’s death are fresh…with sadness and delight do I marry my former sister-in-law” (Shakespeare, pg.10). Gertrude’s integrity and honour is brought into question as she weds the unknown murderer of her deceased husband. A basis of respect for the deceased is an important statue in the court of Denmark. In the courts of Europe, there have been many precedents in which the widow of a deceased king does not remarry and remains in solitude for the remainder of her life. Gertrude’s marriage to Claudius dishonours her relationship with the past king.

There are multiple stages of grief and healing.The stages have no order, so one person may not be at the same stage as another when dealing with the same situation. The same thing applies to the stages of healing. In the novel “Ordinary People” by Judith Guest, the Jarrett family, Conrad, Calvin, and Beth are all in different stages of grief due to the loss of Buck and other reasons varying from character to character.The two main characters Conrad and Calvin move from stages of grief to stages of healing by recognizing why their grieving. They move forward where as Beth does not. Conrad and Calvin move towards healing as they recognize the the reason why they’re grieving, by finding counsel that helps them to let go of grief and to find themselves,

In A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines I believe Grant Wiggins controlled his future. In the story Grant has an inner struggle with himself and the world around him while trying to help Jefferson, field worker, become a man. Jefferson has been branded a hog and has been sentenced to death after being charged with murder by an all white jury. Miss Emma, Jefferson’s godmother, and Tante Lou, Grant’s aunt, want Grant to help make Jefferson a man so he can die with dignity. He is helped by Vivian, Grants girlfriend, and Reverend Ambrose to make Jefferson a man. I believe Grant controlled most of his life in the story. He chooses to quit his job and become a teacher, he chooses between leaving or staying in Bayonne Louisiana, and he decides

One of the first apparent emotions the boy experiences with the death of his father is loneliness to make this section memorable. The boy expresses this sentiment when he stays with his father described as, “When he came back he knelt beside his father and held his cold hand and said his name over and over again,” (McCarthy 281). The definition of loneliness is, “sadness because one has no friends or company.” This action shows that the boy obviously misses his father and wants him to come back. He had no one else and now is all alone in the world. The boy is sad because his father died, but also because of his desolation from life. The boy is so secluded from life, he weeps for his

There are many memories that may come to mind when someone speaks the word of adolescence. Some people recall times of gratification and innocent adventures, but for others the phrase “teenage years” holds horrific memories. For a section of the populace their “teen experiences” may be the most appalling time period, as they begin to undergo many changes. This concept of dark adolescence is present not only in the real world, but in the literary world as well. For example, in the novel A Separate Peace where a friendship turned in the wrong direction and a deadly war, mark the moments of growing up. While some readers believe that Phineas (Finny) and Gene’s separate peace shows the ingenuousness of youthful occurrences;

The affect change has on its surroundings and anything involved could be very detrimental depending on the situation. The poems “Mid-Term Break” and “Nothing Gold Can Stay” are similar, for they are both poems that talk about change. Throughout these poems, it is displayed that change has a negative effect on its surroundings because what comes first, which is the youth that is considered precious, comes to an end and what follows is second best. The first stage of life is precious and when it changes, or ages, a period of grief comes as a result.

To be able to know how to deal with the losses that are discussed in the following chapters, it is important to have a clearer understanding of loss and grief and how to cope with grief following

The Prince has a legitimate obligation to avenge his father’s murder and thus restore the status quo; nonetheless, the murderer is the sovereign himself, which leaves him no option but even to take the law into his own hands to achieve through revenge. Hamlet perceives it is wrong to kill a human being as he is a Christian. Moreover, the Prince is very careful which he has been readily condemned for testing his suspicions and trying to find the proof to demonstrate Claudius killed his father. Another admirable characteristic of Hamlet is his extreme intelligence. Javed also states that “[Hamlet] confuses the evidence of his own eyes and common sense with that of the Ghost and must now resort to complicated indirect tactics of observations. He wants to obtain indirect evidence of Claudius guilt by means of staging a play about fratricide which traps his uncle into betraying his guilt”. The very ambiguity of the Ghost leads Hamlet to test the Ghost’s reliability of and to find plausible evidence which supports his revenge by observing and analyzing Claudius’s attitudes and behaviors through the play which is elaborately shown in front of