Grief is a various response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone that has died. People have a bond or affection formed over time making it hard to lose someone. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a Swiss-born psychiatrist, presented a theory of the five stages of grief that is recognized by society. In the book, Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick, the main character Steven Alper lives a normal life. He plays drums and hates his little brother, Jeffrey. Steven is constantly being annoyed by him which, bugs Steven. When Jeffrey is diagnosed with Leukemia, Steven’s life is flipped right upside down. He is hit hard with the five stages of grief. The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Throughout the story, Sonnenblick explains the five stages of grief very well with Steven Alper.
The first stage of grief is denial. Steven has a hard time going through this stage trying to not accept the fact that Jeffrey has cancer. “So he might not even have cancer, right? If the experts are in Philly, these local doctors are probably wrong pretty often. And then tomorrow night, you’ll come back right? And you’ll tell us it was a mistake?” (Sonnenblick 42). When Steven found out that Jeffrey was diagnosed with
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cancer, he was trying to not think about it and encouraging himself to think it is not true. Steven is trying to contradict the truth. “Ha-ha. Those silly doctors. Can you be-LIEVE they mistook a nosebleed for Leukemia? It’s just so ridiculous” (64). Steven cannot accept that his little brother has cancer. When people go through this stage, they have a hard time believing it happened. This creates overwhelming emotions. The next stage is anger. During this stage, people have a tendency to get angry. Their vulnerability is redirected to be mad, even though the incident is unavoidable. In the novel, Steven gets furious with his family and friends for many reasons: “Why is it your business if I don’t do my math homework? AND even if that somehow, in some way that only you can understand, is your business, how is it your business WHY I didn't do it? First of all you're not my mother and second, even if you were my mother you be in Philadelphia, buying soft pretzels and Italian ices for your baby son.” (57) Steven is getting bothered by all the questions he is getting asked. The anger is usually directed at family and friends. Many people ask themselves why it is happening to them and it is not fair. During this stage, people feel alone with no one to talk to. “Any supposed father who doesn’t even address his son say, once a day, isn’t even a father in my opinion” (58). Steven is really angry at the fact that no one is talking to him while everyone gives the attention to Jeffrey. This stage is usually a feeling of disconnection with reality. The third stage of the five stages of grief is bargaining. When this stage occurs, many people try to do anything to keep their loved ones alive. Very often, guilt is the companion with bargaining. “All righty, if I hit this next pitch, Jeffrey is OK” (81). Steven is trying to haggle that Jeffrey will be okay if good things happen. He is trying to avoid the bad things that could happen. People try to communicate to God to make things better “Here goes a good offer, Lord, if that bird on that tree flies away within ten seconds, Jeffrey is cured” (82). Steven is trying to magically make Jeffrey’s cancer disappear. Even though it does not work, people try whatever they can to make their loved ones better. All this bargaining he is doing is causing him to get behind on schoolwork and not focus. This leads to to depression stage. Steven’s depression stage goes through many problems.
Depression represents the emptiness people feel when they are living in reality and realizing that the person will be gone. people usually are stubborn about going on with life. “Ok I'll brush my teeth now, but Jeffrey might die, so what's the point?” (150). When this stage is occurring, Steven goes through a “what’s the point?” stage. This means that he thinks he should not do anything because there is no point to do it. “We're going to be homeless any minute so what's the point?” (150). Steven and his family are having a hard time with money due to all the medical bills. Over time, Steven grew out of the depression stage leading to finally accepting Jeffrey’s
cancer. The final stage of grief is acceptance. This is the time when people accept what is going on. The experience of depression is what leads to accepting the problem. Acceptance means that people are ready to move on to finally realize that this is a part of life. “Instead of agonizing over the things you can’t change, why don’t you try working on the things you CAN change?” (241). This finally opened up Steven’s eyes, realizing that he can change many things. Steven decided he can change his mind. This means he will not waste all of his energy being angry, sad or denying the incident. “I think reading it was helping both of us” (242). Mrs. Galley gave Steven a book about Leukemia. This helped Steven calm down about his reactions about the cancer. “We couldn’t change the fact that Jeffrey was sick, but we could make sure we knew what was going on” (242). After going through all the stages of grief, the recovery settled into Steven. The stage opens up his mind finally being able to realize its the circle of life. In the beginning of the story, Steven started out as a normal teenage kid. But when Jeffrey got Leukemia, Steven is forced to deal with his brother’s illness and his parents’ attempts to keep the family in one piece. Throughout the book, Steven went through the five stages of grief. Grief can affect someone in many different ways. Throughout the five stages, Steven had a hard time handling his emotions. He handled the acceptance stage really well. He finally realized he needed to stay strong and protect his brother. Jordan Sonnenblick exemplified the five stages of grief in a thoughtful manner with Steven Alper
Tolstoy provided us with two perspectives to view Ivan’s life in “The death of Ivan Illyich”: an omniscient narrator and Ivan himself. What I plan to do is give another perspective, not necessarily to view his life, but rather to his experiences after he realized he was dying. This perspective will be an analytical and psychological; the perspective from Kubler-Ross’s Stages of death (or stages of grief, as they are better known for). These stages occur when we are faced with an event that is usually connected with death. The “normal” order in which these five stages occur, though may not go doctrinally in this order, are as such: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.
Grief in Slaughterhouse Five It seems as though all we hear on the news lately is bad news. So it goes, right? After all, if we took to heart all the tragedies that occur everyday in the world, we'd never get out of bed in the morning. We would have an overload of grief so heavy that we'd probably all die of a broken heart.
When it comes to required academic reading, I can be a rather fussy reviewer. After all, I don’t get to choose the books that I read – they’re required. However, Life after Loss is a purposeful and very well thought-out book. Author Bob Deits paints a picture of grief in a very honest, if not blunt, manner that seldom repeats itself. The anecdotes used (even if he used the annoying tactic of making them up) were engaging and inspiring. Each chapter was concise, uncluttered, and easy to read, and bullet points were used sparingly and to good effect. In this soup to nuts introduction to the grief process, the physical, emotional, and relationship elements of this difficult topic were presented in a strength based and compassionate way.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross developed a theory based on what she perceived to be the stages of acceptance of death. Her theory has been taken further by psychologists and therapists to explain the stages of grief in general. Kubler-Ross identified five stages: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, as happening in that order. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Hamlet exhibits all five stages of grief, we can assume in relation to the recent death of his father, but not necessarily in this order, and in fact the five seem to overlap in many parts of the play.
Grief Girl is a novel written by Erin Vincent about her and her sibling’s experience of losing both their mother and father. Vincent was only fourteen years old at the time of her parents’ death. The chapter goes into detail about the events of the night of Vincent’s parents’ death. Based on the chapter, I can conclude that Vincent definitely went through at least two of the stages of grief. The fact that the novel is nonfiction helps me connect with the emotions that Vincent felt that day. Her details are extremely vivid and it is recognizable that Vincent recalls the events from that day very well.
Overcoming the grief that is felt after losing a loved one is a physically and mentally agonizing task. According to Dr. Christina Hibbert, a clinical psychologist who graduated from the California School of Professional Psychology, three main stages of grief include anger, depression and acceptance. Each one of these emotions can be seen in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and The Descendants (2011, Payne) as the artists explore the effects of grief and the different emotional responses that one can have due to the loss of a loved one. Additionally, in Ismail Kadare’s Broken April, the Berisha family feels the sufferance that is associated with unexpected death, as well as the various temperamental reactions that one will have after losing a loved one. Each of these works of art represent a powerful example of the stages that one will go through after feeling the intense sorrow that is connected with death, as well as the unavoidable effects of grief.
Elisabeth Kubler and David Kessler have a hypothesis in which they have discovered the five stages of grief. Many people experiences grief in many different ways, but they usually follow the 5 stages of grief. In the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly close they discuss the recent events of 9/11. Jonathan Safran Foer talks about grief through a nine year old's point of view about grief and the loss of his father. This novel was very real and personal it shows that type of human emotions you go through when you lose a family member, in this novel many people are able to go through the five stages of grief and it also shows how these characters are able to get through each death individually. Grief is one of the most powerful emotional forces
In 1969 Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist, published the Pioneering book On Death and Dying. The work acquainted the world with the grieving process, called the five stages of grief. Kübler-Ross gathered her research from studying individuals with terminal cancer (Johnson, 2007). The first stage of the grieving process is denial. In this stage the person refuses to believe that their loved one is deceased, a common thought during this period is, “This can’t be happening to me” (Johnson, 2007).The second stage of the grieving process is anger. In this level the person becomes frustrated with their circumstances, a customary complaint is “Why is this happening to me?” (Johnson, 2007). The third stage of the grieving process is bargaining. At this point the individual hopes that they can prevent their grief, this typically involves bartering with a higher power, and an ordinary observance during this time is “I will do anything to have them back” (Johnson, 2007). The fourth and most identifiable stage of grief is depression. This phase is habitually the lengthiest as...
Individually, everyone has their own methods of dealing with situations and emotions regardless of any positive or negative connotation affixed to them. One prime example of this comes with grief. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book “On Death and Dying” suggests that there are five stages of mourning and grief that are universal and, at one point or another, experienced by people from all walks of life. These stages, in no particular order, are as follows: Denial and Isolation, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and finally Acceptance. Each individual person works through these stages in different orders for varying levels of time and intensity, but most if not all are necessary to “move on.” In order for positive change to occur following a loss, one must come to terms with not only the event but also themselves.
"’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, / nor customary suits of solemn black / [ . . . ] but I have that within which passeth show; / these but the trappings and the suits of woe” (Shakespeare 1.2.76-73, 85-86) says Hamlet when confronted about his way of grieving over his father’s recent death. Shakespeare’s play Hamlet is a remarkable tale that is centered on the idea of death and grief. While death is a universal occurrence, meaning every person will deal with it, how we grieve after a loss is completely individual. To look at a formula of grief, most turn to the five stages of grief developed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, a psychiatrist, who studied the topic in her book On Death and Dying. This model consists of denial, anger, sadness, bargaining, and acceptance, although the duration and order of the stages are different for every person. In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet the stages of grief are evident in his sadness, anger, and finally acceptance.
Everyone has or will experience a loss of a loved one sometime in their lives. It is all a part of the cycle of life and death. The ways each person copes with this loss may differ, but according to Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s novel On Death and Dying, a person experiences several stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and, finally, acceptance. There is no set time for a person to go through each stage because everyone experiences and copes with grief differently. However, everyone goes through the same general feelings of grief and loss. There are also sections in Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” that connect to the process of grieving: “On Pain,” “On Joy and Sorrow,” and “On Talking.” Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” reflects on Kübler-Ross’s model of the different stages of grief and loss.
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.
Many experts agree that there are different stages of grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are stages that many grief-stricken people must endure to manage life after a traumatic death. The story, “The Fly,” by Katherine Mansfield, has only a few characters in it, but those few characters show the different stages of grief. The characters illustrate how different the grieving process is when the circumstances of the deaths are the same. Mr. Woodfield is in the stage of depression, and he may have turned to harmful habits after his son’s death.
Many experts would agree that there are different stages in grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance are stages that many grief stricken people must endure to manage life after a traumatic death. The story “The Fly” by Katherine Mansfield has only a few characters in it, but those few characters show the different stages of grief. The characters illustrate how different the grieving process is when the circumstances of the deaths are the same.
The Death of Ivan Illych brings an excellent in-depth description of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s 5 cycles of grief theory. In the book, it shows how Ivan Illych goes through these cycles in their own individual way. The cycles that Kubler-Ross uses in her theory are: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. To get a better understanding of these cycles, this paper will describe each cycle and provide quotations that will help develop an idea of how someone going through these cycles may react.