Belief in Grief
I struggled to feel a connection to any of the short stories we have read recently in relation to a prompt for this blog post, but when we read “Black-Eyed Women”, it stuck with me. The story’s ability to flip the script on the common “ghost story” narrative seamlessly while giving the idea of ghosts and haunting stuck out to me. If I thought of any ghost books or movies, I could only come up with media under the horror genre. Safe to say, I was stumped on how to convey my thoughts with the prompts I had left to expand upon. I reached out to Dr. E for guidance regarding what and how to express my thoughts, and he directed me to the 2017 film, A Ghost Story. Through watching the film, I gained a broader sense of the wide-ranging reach of the idea of ghosts through genres beyond horror. Both stories revolve around the relationship between the living and the dead, or, more specifically, the extremely blurry lines between the two. With the blurred lines at the focus of the two stories, it allows the reader / viewer to experience the critiques on what humans understand the least: what happens when we die?
“Black-Eyed Women” outlines the work of a ghostwriter — a profession for which she writes on the grief of others — and delves into her experience writing for a sole-survivor of a plane crash who sees ghosts and her relationship with her grief and brother’s death. She grew up listening to the stories of the “Black-Eyed Women” in the bunker during the war, learning of the importance of stories and memory. She too uses her ability of storytelling to give a voice to the people who can hardly make sense of it in the wake of tragedy. For the narrator, she recontextualizes her own relationship with the ghost of her brother and the closure never received from his death, and in a way, her death. A Ghost Story depicts the experience of a ghost and his relationship to the living, the dead, and the concept of time itself. The main motif of “Black-Eyed Women” is the relationship between life and death, the living and the ghosts. Comparatively, A Ghost Story follows the same narrative and motif. Both of them flip the script on the common horror depiction of ghosts. The narrator in “Black-Eyed Women” states, “I did not tell her that I had no desire to terrify the living. [...] My ghosts were the quiet and shy ones like my brother.” (Nguyen 18) The narrator clearly describes the common notion of ghosts and their hauntings in contrast to her personal experience with ghosts, specifically her brother. Similarly, the ghost in A Ghost Story exists as a spiritual being in the physical realm, internally tormented by his existence, or lack thereof. Just as the narrator in the short story described it, the ghosts in both stories remain quiet and in other words, passive to the world they remain. Grief is also displayed in both, as the narrator in “Black-Eyed Women” deals with her long-time grief while M in A Ghost Story experiences grief while the ghost observes her process of his death, eating an entire pie (in one take) only to feel ill right after from numbness to her senses and grief. At some point, the two stories describe the perceived importance of mortality and legacy. Humans cannot possibly conceive the idea of anything beyond death. “Black-Eyed Women” ends with, “Stories are just things we fabricate, nothing more. We search for them in a world besides our own, then leave them here to be found, garments shed by ghosts.” (Nguyen 18) In A Ghost Story, the ghost’s wife, M, explains how she writes small notes and leaves them places for the memory of her to alway remain long after she is gone. Another character also discusses Beethoven and how everyone is striving to make their mark when in reality we all die and we just want people to remember us. These themes hit home for the main ghost characters in both stories as both of their arcs revolve around the concept of memory.
Although explicating similar concepts, each work handles it in their own way. The line that stood out the most in “Black-Eyed Women” was, “The dead move on, but the living, we just stay here.” (Nguyen 18) Throughout this short story, the narrator (living) deals with the trauma and grief of loss of a loved one. She “stays here” and is forced to deal with the loss no matter how many years pass. The narrator lives with the memories of the lost while the dead get to move on from their living version of reality, strung along with the grief of the living and constantly living in their peripheral vision. In contrast, A Ghost Story’s critique of the afterlife focused on the perspective of the ghost, implying that the dead do in fact not move on. After his death, the ghost watches his wife grieve for him, but he also watches her move on from him. It is not clear whether or not she fully recovers from the loss, but when she leaves the house and moves away, it becomes pretty apparent that she has moved past the initial grief. She was ready to move forward, not necessarily move on. Sadly, the ghost is incapable of moving forward as he is confined to their home in a disorienting timeline. The other main difference is the physical relationship between the living and the dead. While the living and the dead may interact with each other in “Black-Eyed Women”, the dead can see the living and possibly interact with them given the right emotion but the living can’t see the dead.
The human lack of understanding towards the unknown and the end of our life as a conscious “living” being are constantly tested by ghost narratives like “Black-Eyed Women” and A Ghost Story that speculate upon the beliefs of the afterlife, often hopping along the tightrope between the fluidity of living and dead. “Black-Eyed Women” offers new ideas of what it means to be living and grieve the dead while A Ghost Story depicts the dead grieving the living moving on from them. In the end, all we have are the memories of people, the good, the bad, and everything in between. The stories also show that people deal with loss and grieve differently, even if they are in similar circumstances. At the end of the day, humans have no foolproof evidence of the afterlife and our physical realm’s relationship to it, so we have to trust in the unknown. Just as Victor says, “You aren't afraid of the things you believe in.” (Nguyen 18) In the meantime, we can strive to leave our little notes or write in the shadows for glory unclaimed to keep our memory above the ground when we inevitably rest in the dirt.
“Black-Eyed Women” outlines the work of a ghostwriter — a profession for which she writes on the grief of others — and delves into her experience writing for a sole-survivor of a plane crash who sees ghosts and her relationship with her grief and brother’s death. She grew up listening to the stories of the “Black-Eyed Women” in the bunker during the war, learning of the importance of stories and memory. She too uses her ability of storytelling to give a voice to the people who can hardly make sense of it in the wake of tragedy. For the narrator, she recontextualizes her own relationship with the ghost of her brother and the closure never received from his death, and in a way, her death. A Ghost Story depicts the experience of a ghost and his relationship to the living, the dead, and the concept of time itself. The main motif of “Black-Eyed Women” is the relationship between life and death, the living and the ghosts. Comparatively, A Ghost Story follows the same narrative and motif. Both of them flip the script on the common horror depiction of ghosts. The narrator in “Black-Eyed Women” states, “I did not tell her that I had no desire to terrify the living. [...] My ghosts were the quiet and shy ones like my brother.” (Nguyen 18) The narrator clearly describes the common notion of ghosts and their hauntings in contrast to her personal experience with ghosts, specifically her brother. Similarly, the ghost in A Ghost Story exists as a spiritual being in the physical realm, internally tormented by his existence, or lack thereof. Just as the narrator in the short story described it, the ghosts in both stories remain quiet and in other words, passive to the world they remain. Grief is also displayed in both, as the narrator in “Black-Eyed Women” deals with her long-time grief while M in A Ghost Story experiences grief while the ghost observes her process of his death, eating an entire pie (in one take) only to feel ill right after from numbness to her senses and grief. At some point, the two stories describe the perceived importance of mortality and legacy. Humans cannot possibly conceive the idea of anything beyond death. “Black-Eyed Women” ends with, “Stories are just things we fabricate, nothing more. We search for them in a world besides our own, then leave them here to be found, garments shed by ghosts.” (Nguyen 18) In A Ghost Story, the ghost’s wife, M, explains how she writes small notes and leaves them places for the memory of her to alway remain long after she is gone. Another character also discusses Beethoven and how everyone is striving to make their mark when in reality we all die and we just want people to remember us. These themes hit home for the main ghost characters in both stories as both of their arcs revolve around the concept of memory.
Although explicating similar concepts, each work handles it in their own way. The line that stood out the most in “Black-Eyed Women” was, “The dead move on, but the living, we just stay here.” (Nguyen 18) Throughout this short story, the narrator (living) deals with the trauma and grief of loss of a loved one. She “stays here” and is forced to deal with the loss no matter how many years pass. The narrator lives with the memories of the lost while the dead get to move on from their living version of reality, strung along with the grief of the living and constantly living in their peripheral vision. In contrast, A Ghost Story’s critique of the afterlife focused on the perspective of the ghost, implying that the dead do in fact not move on. After his death, the ghost watches his wife grieve for him, but he also watches her move on from him. It is not clear whether or not she fully recovers from the loss, but when she leaves the house and moves away, it becomes pretty apparent that she has moved past the initial grief. She was ready to move forward, not necessarily move on. Sadly, the ghost is incapable of moving forward as he is confined to their home in a disorienting timeline. The other main difference is the physical relationship between the living and the dead. While the living and the dead may interact with each other in “Black-Eyed Women”, the dead can see the living and possibly interact with them given the right emotion but the living can’t see the dead.
The human lack of understanding towards the unknown and the end of our life as a conscious “living” being are constantly tested by ghost narratives like “Black-Eyed Women” and A Ghost Story that speculate upon the beliefs of the afterlife, often hopping along the tightrope between the fluidity of living and dead. “Black-Eyed Women” offers new ideas of what it means to be living and grieve the dead while A Ghost Story depicts the dead grieving the living moving on from them. In the end, all we have are the memories of people, the good, the bad, and everything in between. The stories also show that people deal with loss and grieve differently, even if they are in similar circumstances. At the end of the day, humans have no foolproof evidence of the afterlife and our physical realm’s relationship to it, so we have to trust in the unknown. Just as Victor says, “You aren't afraid of the things you believe in.” (Nguyen 18) In the meantime, we can strive to leave our little notes or write in the shadows for glory unclaimed to keep our memory above the ground when we inevitably rest in the dirt.
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