During my reading of “The Management of Grief” by Bharati Mukherjee, I was able to connect so deeply within every passage written, and the dialogue between characters. As I read, I tried to imagine myself during the time of our tragic event on 9/11. It was not the exact tragedy that Bharati was describing, but it was the closest way for me to connect into the solid world she was trying to create within her style of writing. The passage that I pulled out for this blog post is the last one that ends the reading on page 985.
As we have learned in Charters’s “The Elements of Fiction” plot is the sequence of events in a story and their relation to one another as they develop and usually resolve a conflict. In the last passage of “The Management of Grief” it’s as if all the events including the bombing, the loss of relatives, the new reports, the identifying of the lost lives, the constant reminders of such a tragic moment had all come to a calm ending. The last passage certainly resolved the inner conflict that this young woman was facing throughout this tragic story, her inner being was being tested and finally she was able to bring it to an end. Bharati writes as “Your time has come”, they said. “Go be brave” , the style in which she writes this small mental and realistic dialogue shows us how the events of the plot led to us the audience understanding the main character in so much depth. We have all dealt with situations we may not have known how to deal with whether it may be a loss of a family member, or friend, and the events that take place before and after the loss takes a toll on one. Bharati allows us the audience to see that there is no rush or time frame for when it is time to move on. It’s the plot of events that allow us to determine how we will go on and how we will continue our lives once we have come to terms with what has occurred. “The Management of Grief” certainly allows us to get into more than just the plot to show Bharati’s great use of literary elements throughout this reading.
I would agree that all the events that progressed in the story all come to a calm end. I would also agree that the style she writes the small mental dialogue does bring together the events of the story to have a better understanding of the main character in much depth. We see how the author allows us to see how the main character progresses through time after the incident showing how other characters have moved on faster than others. This does show there is really no set amount of time for someone to move on from something like this, it varies from person to person as we see with the main character finally at the end of the story being able to move on after hearing those words from the family she lost from the incident.
I think when reading this story most peoples mind drift towards 9/11 because as Mukherjee was describing this tragedy most people who have experienced or learned about the tragic events that took place can relate to what the characters in the story went through. I agree with the way you interpret and connect the ending of “The Management of Grief” to its plot and how it helps readers understand the characters more deeply. All of the other characters have dealt with their conflict, which is losing their loved ones obviously and they have found a way to move on with their lives. As Mukherjee writes, “I wait, I listen and I pray, but Vikram has not returned to me”, despite Shaila hearing her friends moving on, she still waited and believed her husband would come back to her. She finally took that as a sign and decided to move on with her life. I agree that Mukherjee implies to readers that there is no rush or time foe when it is time to move on.
I think the author did a great job at using time as a character building tool. Throughout the story our protagonist doesn’t seem to need to manage her grief, she seems the least affected out of all of the widows and widowers, so it gives us and impression that she is strong willed and calm and collected under stress, and this goes on right until the end. The quote you picked reveals to us that she was suffering the whole time, unable to move on, and was probably the last one to finally achieve some sort of peace. It shows that she was not as strong as she was first portrayed, but more frozen from the tragic events.
I also imagined the event of 9/11 when reading “The Management of Grief” because the author describes every single moment very clearly. When reading this story, the readers feels like they are actually experiencing this tragedy thought I was confused at the beginning because the author never started with an introduction to where this all takes place and we readers have to keep reading to find out what is happening. Mukherjee started this story in a kitchen with women whom the narrator does not recognize, then it when onto talking about a plane and if people from the neighborhood would be alright. the way Mukherjee wrote this story, it has the readers drawn in by the description of the thing that were happening .