“The Management of Grief” by Bharati Mukherjee

Hi, this is Lucy Liang.

The story begins with a scene where many people are gathered at the narrator’s house, and “ There are a lot of women I don’t know”, stated by the narrator. This made me wonder what is going on in this house, what is happening, who those people are, and why are they all at the narrator’s house? The narrator of the story, Shaila, does not seem at all eager to explain to the reader of the answers to these questions. Instead, very calmly, the reader is brought to experience the scene as the narrator experiences it, while being introduced to thoughts of the narrator, like the narrator is constantly reminded of her husband and boys (417) that raised more questions as to where the narrator’s family is. These hinted at something big, and perhaps tragic, had happened to this community. A background of the story was not forced into the reader, but the readers were allowed to find out for themselves from in between the lines of the story. This keeps the reader engaged, and feels more real to the reader since we usually find out about most situations through such a way instead of being told directly.