Grief as Narrative

I recently watched NBC’s Awake, a new (and short-lived unfortunately) series about a man who, after a car accident kills a loved one, constructs himself two universes. One where his wife survived and his son died, and one where his son survived and his wife did not. The whole thing was wonderfully crafted with layered writing, complex characters and some pretty stellar misé-en-scene all round (the tinting of the film to signify which reality the protagonist was in was awesome). It got me thinking a lot about grief-narratives though, and how grief functions thematically in film, books and story generally, and how frequently it’s used.

I myself write about grief all the time, not always intentionally, but it tends to seep into characters, narrative, setting, whatever. There’s just always an undercurrent of it. It’s a funny thing, because I haven’t really been exposed to grief first hand, I’ve had no great, unexpected loss, nor have I suffered a crippling break-up, but I feel drawn to it as a narrative device and as a part of character, place and story. I’m certainly not alone in this, writers use grief all the time. The Harry Potter series by JK Rowling relies heavily on grief as a key component thematically and narratively, and characters within the series are frequently exposed to grief or feel its residual effects. Harry himself epitomises this. He feels grief at the loss of parents he didn’t know, but he also brings that grief out in everyone around him. He looks like his father, but with his mother’s eyes, and this acts as a reminder to the people who knew them, and continue to grieve that loss.

Shows from Breaking Bad, American Horror Story, Being Human, Twin Peaks all feature grief if not as a major point, as a sub-plot to the overarching narrative. What fascinates me though is the fact that in all of these examples, grief is used to drive plot and character forward when, in reality, grief frequently stagnates and cripples. Grief always represents a change, but not necessarily in a way that’s progressive; however, narratives have turning points to reach, characters to develop, and some sort of closure to get to. In storytelling, grief has to be progressive and it has to end, or at least serve a purpose. Is this why we as audiences and as storytellers find grief compelling? Why it’s so damn watchable? Fiction provides an end to grief when reality doesn’t have to. That could be a leap, then again, I feel like grief is something that unites and can be shared unlike a lot of other emotions or experiences. People live diverse lives, but the feeling of loss and grief is unanimous. You can feel grief as a nation, as a family, as a person, you can feel it at a loss or at a gain,  at a hurt or at someone else’s joy, it can be bitter, it can be sweet, it can be angry or mean or it can simply be sad.

Whilst it’s a unanimously felt emotion, it’s not something people are going to react similarly too, which makes it such excellent fodder for narrative and character and such an interesting thing to explore. The comparison can be a beautiful thing in storytelling too, Rabbit Hole (2010) is a beautiful film about loss and it explores it through a family after the death of a child; the coping mechanisms between the mother and father are chalk and cheese, as the father wallows and the mother, Becca, makes desperate, angry steps forwards, simultaneously lashing out and seeking solace wherever she can find it. You also have the grandmother, Becca’s mother, who is still coping with the loss of her own son a number of years earlier and spends so long reaching out for her daughter. The whole thing ends with one of the most beautiful exchanges, as Becca asks if grief ever goes away, and her mother is torn in her desire to reassure and her need to be honest. Finally, she says,

“No, I don’t think it does. Not for me, it hasn’t – has gone on for eleven years. It changes though…the weight of it, I guess. At some point, it becomes bearable. It turns into something that you can crawl out from under and carry around like a brick in your pocket. And you even forget it, for a while. But then you reach in for whatever reason and – there it is. Oh right, that. Which could be awful, but it’s not all the time. It’s not that you like it exactly, but it’s what you’ve got instead of your son, so you carry it around with you.”

Grief is a compelling thing, and a feeling that gets dissected across genre and medium alike, and it’s something that draws me into a narrative too quickly. I don’t have an answer really as to why, but I don’t really think it’ll stop seeping into my writing either, I don’t really think I want it to.

x

Soph.

P.S. Everyone should immediately go out and watch Awake and Rabbit Hole and also read The Children by Charlotte Wood which is a beautiful novel about grief and family and made me sob on a train when I first read it. It was awesome.