Grief (novel)
During the course of the novel, the ideas of the stages of grief are introduced. The stages are denial, anger, depression, and acceptance. The narrator, as well as other characters in the story, slowly passes through these stages in trying to deal with death.
Grief (novel)
♦Mary Todd Lincoln - Throughout the novel, the narrator reads the letters of Mary Todd Lincoln and her story exerts great influence on him and his views on grief. In particular, the narrator is interested in the way Lincoln reacts to the deaths of her loved ones. After her husband died, Lincoln seemed to believe “that any attempt to be happy was beside the point, since she was only waiting to be reunited with her husband and children in the afterlife” (68). At one point the narrator states that “the letters of Mrs. Lincoln were starting to be the reference for everything [he] noticed” (68). He is fascinated with her, and her personal story is an integral part of his.