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Fernando C. Caldona
April 1, 2023

To Move Forward

Bharati Mukherjee’s “The Management of Grief” as the title suggests, is a story that
revolves around grief. It epitomizes the human response to tragedy with the varying degrees
of loss, grief, and feedback that were exhibited through the different characters introduced. In
going through the differing experiences and responses the characters have toward the tragedy,
it is demonstrated how the “management of grief” is an experience that can never truly be
contained in a concept as rigid as stages or phases.

The story starts out rather slow with ambiguity. Lacking an objective narration, it is
reluctant to share with the reader any of the specificities regarding Shaila Bhave’s condition.
This gives the reader the opportunity to fully assimilate with the perspective of Shaila, who is
still in denial and attempts to suppress information that would lead her to think of the tragedy.
It is only with the things happening around Shaila that the reader, by way of extension, learns
of the current situation; that a supposed Sikh bomb had caused a plane to crash, claiming the
lives of Shaila and Kusum’s family.

This resembles the inevitability of one’s experience of loss and grief which is a
common motif of literature both new and old. One can attempt to run from the dilemma but
ultimately, one way or another, it is bound to make itself manifest. Relating to the fine arts,
“No color is easily dyed white.” This sets the foreground for the conflict Shaila pursues as
she travels to Ireland and India. She carries with her the motivation to learn what acceptance
is, find healing, and search for a path in a life without her husband and children.

At some point in the story, Judith Templeton is introduced. Although not directly in
contact with Shaila at the time of the climax, Judith stands as the critical antagonist in the
story, being perhaps the greater obstacle Shaila must overcome. Upon the disruption of the
status quo through the plane crash, Judith’s character steps in to “manage” the effects of the
tragedy. As the appointee of the provincial government, her job consists of tracking the status
of those affected and segregating them into those who “need help” and those who have
“accepted.” Shaila finds this uncompromising approach repulsive, as she had been deemed
the “strongest person” and a “pillar” based on her proximity with the norm, when in fact, she
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felt “ Not peace, just a deadening quiet. I was always controlled, but never repressed. Sound
can reach me, but my body is tensed, ready to scream.”

Furthermore, Judith’s curt manner of speech constitutes the profile of an antagonist,

giving the reader the impression of a lack of humanity. This is seen throughout the story as
she deals with experiences of loss with a strict and formal tone, as if to simply close a
business deal. All things considered, the dehumanizing force Judith is an obstacle Shaila
attempts to surmise as she searches for a path forward. She is an embodiment of the
establishment, which seeks to maintain the status quo of the system by attempting to silence
any protest and resistance with little to no regard to what is humane. Judith herself says that
they “don’t always have the human touch, or maybe the right human touch.” Other than that,
it also deludes the fault from itself and shifts it onto elements outside of its scope of control.
This is evident as Dr. Sharma’s son says "They're acting evasive. Ma. They're saying it could
be an accident or a terrorist bomb." and Judith evades Shaila’s remark by arguing “Police
matters are not in my hands.”

At the story’s climax, however, Shaila is faced with tension that bears just as much
gravity in defining her journey towards acceptance. Upon Shaila’s arrival in India, she is
caught between a tension between religion and tradition where one pivots toward what has
passed and the latter on what has yet to be or what can be. In Shaila’s words, “I am trapped
between two modes of knowledge. At thirty-six, I am too old to start over and too young to
give up.” It is no coincidence that religion and tradition were used as pulling forces in the
story as in reality, we witness how the greater strides in people’s lives are often driven by
external forces rather than one’s own discernment.

Ultimately, Shaila is able to make a choice the moment Vikram descends to her. It is
neither to stay, nor to bend to tradition and start a new journey. Vikram tells her to finish
alone what they had started. Although this does not yet give her clarity as to what exactly she
must do from now on, it has given her a general sense of direction on what it is she must do;
prompting her to travel back to Canada as the story proceeds to its downward movement.
This is resemblant of Joseph Campbell’s paradigm of the monomyth, wherein the protagonist
leaves his home and undergoes a transformative journey, ultimately finding his way back
home. Ironically, such a paradigm is not the sole product of a literary trend, but also extends
to reality or the human experiences upon which they are grounded.
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Another concept the story incorporates in developing its theme is Sigmund Freud’s
Structures of Personality. By way of embodiment through its characters, Bharati Mukherjee is
able to show how the clash between the id, ego, and superego influences the way people
come to terms with their grief. In particular, we see the dominance of the id in Kusum’s
character with how she initially responded to the news of the tragedy; running across Shaila’s
front yard in her bathrobe. More subtly, we see how her intrusive thoughts favoring her dead
daughter sporadically come to surface whenever she interacts with Pam.

Dr. Ranganathan’s character, on the other hand, is a projection of the superego. He

was someone who was ego-driven at first, placing emphasis on the soundness of evidence
and reason, and displaying optimism guided by ideology. Ultimately, though, he chooses to
never utter a word of the incident again, suppressing the extremes of the emotions he was
supposedly feeling, and leading a life compliant with social norms. Ironically, perhaps his
keenness regarding the sciences served not to guide his judgment, but to divert his attention
from the plague of his inner thoughts just as he had done with Shaila.

With how these characters contrast with Shaila, the story is able to highlight the
significance of the tension surrounding the ego and how it transforms in the long run. In that
respect, it can be said that the story is one that belongs to Shaila. At the beginning of the
story, she is in a state of unnerving suppression; in a medication-induced “peace” where her
feelings eat at her from the inside out. Ultimately, she undergoes a metamorphosis that allows
her to come full-circle and acknowledge a life where her family no longer exists, evident in
how she chooses not to cooperate and to instead ignore Judith. Thereafter, the story concludes
at an open ending, shrouded in ambiguity just as it had started. All of this adds an ironic twist
to the story’s title; that perhaps the management of grief is not at all a means to find security
in the future, but the discovery of a force that assures you there is always purpose and
meaning in life.