The Five Stages of Grief Four Levels
Four levels of the poem The Five Stages of Grief are as follows:
Literal Comprehension
“The Five Stages of Grief” is a poem by American Poet Linda Pastan. In this poem, the writer lost her husband, the most important person in her life.
And, someone told her she should go through the five stages of grief that could be the simple way to forget him.
The first stage is denial, at first, she denied her husband’s absence and she gave him toast and paper on the table but her husband behinds the paper.
She becomes very angry and burns the toast and takes the paper and reads herself.
Then, she starts to bargain with death and search for things that can be exchangeable for him. After that, remembering her past life with her husband she becomes too sad (depressed).
After passing time, she has accepted the death of her husband and gets up to fight with upcoming challenges realizing that life and death is a natural process in human life.
Interpretation
The main theme of this poem is that life and death is a natural process, everybody has to face them and accept them, it happens in everybody’s life.
When somebody goes from our life then we know the real value of that person. This poem taught us to love loved ones when they are alive otherwise it will be too late. Also, this poem tells us we have to accept the five stages of grief.
Critical Thinking
Some questionable aspects of this poem are;
- Is it fruitful to be angry after losing anyone?
- Is it possible to get back the dead person through bargaining?
- Are really five stages of grief help to forget the dead person?
- Is everyone goes through the five stages of grief when they lost a person in their life?
Assimilation
The writer of this poem reminded me of the event when my best friend’s dad died. His mom was crying so hard and finding her husband everywhere pretending he is there.
She stopped eating everything saying while he comes we will eat together. But after someday we convinced her saying life and death happened in everybody’s life.
The most asked question from this text is,
What are the five stages of grief?
The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.