Time The Depiction of the Setting in The Management of Grief

Kusum says that we can‟t escape our fate. She says that all those people– our husbands, my boys, her girl with the nightingale voice, all those Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Parsis, and atheists on that plane – were fated to die together off this beautiful bay. She learned this from a swam in Toronto. The above quotation show that all of people cannot escape from their fate. The fate does not come to a certain person. The fate comes to all of people without choosing which one race, religion, culture, or nation to be in a grief. In that place, they can meet people who have the same condition. They do not see the diversity. The thing what they need is having a relative. Besides, some of them rebuild their power facing the grief. The term of relative is mentioned in the story, it is when two widows and four widowers who have the same experience of loss spend their day in the hospital room and scan the photographs of the dead. Mukherjee ‟s TMoG 1988: 184 said that “Six of us “relatives”–two widows and four widowers– choose to spend the day today by the waters instead of sitting in a hospital room and scanning photographs of the dead. That‟s what they call us now: relatives.” By seeing that condition, Bhave and Kusum meet Dr. Ranganathan who is also in a grief, meet in a bay when Bhave and Kusum knee-deep in water to remind Bhave‟s son who likes swimming. Dr. Ranganathan comes to share his grief to them. The way Dr. Ranganathan remembers about his wife is bring roses. It is because his wife likes pink roses. This way is to show how he loves his wife and regret not to say before his wife died. They attempts to come back to the nature in order to remember their family. It is because they think what happened in this world will be back to the nature. By reflecting the chronology, they realize what they have are only from God. Kusum as the holy person who is always advised by her swami reminding that the depression they feel is only a sign of their selfishness. Mukherjee ‟s TMoG 1988: 185 mentioned that “I tell myself I have no right to grieve. They are in a better place than we are. My swami says depression is a sign of our selfishness.” Another part that they attempt to bring their grief back to the nature is when Bhave floats her family‟s things into the water. It is stated that But I have other things to float: Vinod‟s pocket calculator; a half-painted model B- 52 for my Mithun. They‟d want them on their island. And for my husband? For him I let fall into the calm, glassy waters a poem I wrote in the hospital yester day. Finally he‟ll know my feelings for him. Mukherjee ‟s TMoG, 1988: 187. In the recovery condition, she has a travel with her family to the beach resorts. Mukherjee‟s TMoG 1988: 190 said that Courting aphasia, we travel. We travel with our phalanx of servants and poor relatives. To hill stations and to beach resorts. We play contract bridge in dusty gymkhana clubs. We ride stubby ponies up crumbly mountain trails. At tea dances, we let ourselves be twirled twice round the ballroom. We hit the holy spo ts we hadn‟t made time for before. In Varanasi, Kalighat, Rishikesh, Haridwar, astrologers and palmists seek me out and for a fee offer me cosmic consolations. From the quotation, it shows that her voyage is the effort to reconstruct their new life by finding and meeting a new bride. After the days she has PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI experienced with her family, she returns to Toronto. She attempts to assess her life and think about the plan she can do to continue her life. In that place, they try to rebuild their power to have a new life without forgeting them. They try to think positive towards the accident. Besides, they can meet people who have the same condition whoever they are. They do not see the diversity. The thing what they need is having a relative. Bhave is in a tiny Himalayan village when she feels her husband comes to meet her. Mukherjee ‟s TMoG 1988: 190 said that Then, on the third day of the sixth month into this odyssey, in an abandoned temple in a tiny Himalayan village, as I make my offering of flowers and sweetness to the god of a tribe of animists, my husband descends to me. He is squatting next to a scrawny sadhu in moth-eaten robes. Vikram wears the vanilla suit he wore the last time I hugged him. The sadhu toses petals on a butter-fed flame, reciting Sanskrit mantras and sweeps his face of flies. My husband takes my hands in his. You’re beautiful, he starts. Then, What are you doing? Shall I saty? I ask. He only smiles, but already the image is fading. You must finish alone what we started together. No seaweed wreathes his mouth. He speaks too fast just as he used to when we were an envied family in our pink spilt-level. He is gone. It pictures that her husband attempts to give the spirit to Bhave to continue her life even though she has to continue it by herself. Then, she feels her husband supports her. It means that her husband wants to give a positive suggestion to Bhave. It is because a life still continues. Besides, Bhave, herself attempts to suggest herself by positive thinking that the life must go on. Bhave can feel the arrival of her husband who has died, but another person as her mother cannot feel the arrival. Mukherjee‟s TMoG 1988: 191 said that When we come out of the temple, my mother says, “Did you feel something weird in there?” My mother has no patience with ghosts, prophetic dreams, holy men, and cults. It shows that she recovers from the grief by starting the positive way. Besides, she comes to a tiny Himalayan village to worship to the god of a tribe of animists.

b. Mental Condition

In this part, it begins when Bhave desperates because of losing her family. She remembers the memory in her mind about her family. Mukherjee‟s TMoG 1988: 179 stated that “They remind me of when my sons were small, on Mother‟s Day or when Vikram and I were tired, and they would make big, sloppy omelets. I woul d lie in bed pretending I didn‟t hear them.” It shows that she attempts to face a conflict in her mind about the memory. The sadness that Bhave wants to show is when Judith visits her to ask her help and says Bhave is the strongest person of all. Actually, Bhave attempts to show her true feelings. Mukherjee‟s TMoG 1988: 183 said that “But you are coping very well. All the people said, Mrs. Bhave is the strongest person of all. Perhaps if the others could see you, talk with you, it would help them.” “By the standards of the people you call hysterical, I am behaving very oddly and very badly, Miss Templeton.” I want to say to her, I wish I could scream, starve, walk into Lake Ontario, jump from a bridge. “They would not see me as a model. I do not see mysel f as a model.” From the above quotation, it shows that there are some parts showing the sense of humanity. It is when Judith Templeton, as an appointee of the provincial government, comes to meet Bhave. She asks to Bhave‟s help to have a communication with people who also grieve.