The Management of Grief Themes

The central conflict of “The Management of Grief” is between those directly experiencing grief (represented by the protagonist Shaila Bhave) and those who know about grief secondhand (represented by Judith Templeton, a Canadian government official who manages the government benefits for the family members of those killed in the plane bombing at the story’s center). Judith reads textbooks on “grief management” and insists that there are proper steps—“rejection, depression, acceptance, reconstruction”—to manage grief…

Judith Templeton’s approach to grief exemplifies a kind of bureaucratic coldness that the story condemns. At the beginning of the story, Judith—a white Canadian woman—enlists Shaila to help her navigate “the complications of culture, language, and customs” that she faces when she meets with grieving families who immigrated from India. Judith seems, on the one hand, aware of her own shortcomings—and, by extension, those of the Canadian government—when communicating with families affected by the…

The phrase “a parent’s duty is to hope” comes up multiple times throughout the story. Dr. Ranganathan first says it when he suggests that Shaila’s sons, and others on the plane, may have been able to swim to safety. “It’s a parent’s duty to hope,” he says, and Shaila is flooded with relief. She later says that she packed the suitcase she brought to Ireland, where she has gone to identify the bodies of…

When Judith initially asks for Shaila’s assistance, Shaila responds by saying that she won’t be able to help and that “we must all grieve in our own way.” Each person’s “own way” to grieve depends, the story suggests, on both their culture and their own personal, lived experience. For example, the Sikh couple maintains hope that their sons will return. Dr. Ranganathan finds refuge first in a kind of optimistic pragmatism and then by…