Grief and Death

Mr. Villanueva
What do you notice about these clips?

● Some things I noticed:

○ Tony Stark was increasingly angry after the fact Thanos annihilated half the population of
the universe.
○ Thor chooses to forget the past, and he gets emotional as soon as Hulk talks about it.
○ Although Steve holds therapy sessions for people, he states that some people move on
“but not us.”
○ Natasha still hasn’t moved on from her old life as a Shield Agent 5 years after the Thanos
snap.
The 5 Stages of Grief

Grief consists of five different stages:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Acceptance

Can you identify any of these stages within the Avengers clips?
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Wives of the Dead”
(1832)
What Happened to the two wives of the story?

● The story follows two women, Margaret and Mary in Massachusetts.

○ These two women are recently widowed; both of their husbands have passed
away unexpectedly.
○ The townspeople continuously offer them their condolences, but the two women
simply want to be left alone.
● As the story progresses, we see the two women are increasingly bitter.
● How is grief being used within this story?
Significance of Sleep in the Story

● As the story develops, the two main characters show signs of grief.
○ One sign of this is sleep, or the lack thereof.
○ Mary sleeps in order to get through her grief.
○ Margaret fails to sleep as a result of her grief.
● What news does Margaret get during the night?
○ She receives news from Goodman Parker that her husband is
actually alive.
● What news does Mary get in the morning?
○ She receives news from a past lover that her husband is still alive.
● Is this a happy ending? Or is there some ambiguity?
The Last Line

● Within this short story it is unclear whether or not the events are real or
simply vivid imagination.
○ Why is sleep significant in this short story?
■ Majority of the major events happen due to lack of sleep or a
result from sleep (dreaming).
○ It is unclear whether the news of the wives’ husbands is true or
not.
■ Hawthorne's description of shadows and light in the dark are
dream-like.
■ it is ambiguous whether one or both of the women merely
dreamed the visitors and the good news they bring.
Double-Entry Journal Directions

1. In the left-hand column, copy sentences or words directly from the text (you can also
summarize the passage in your own words). In parentheses, have the paragraph number
you got the quotation from.
2. In the right-hand column of the page, write down your inferential and critical thinking
about the word, summary, or quotation you chose, in other words, your
analysis/connections.
3. Try to choose quotes you are struggling with or ones that deal with the themes of death,
loss, or grief within the story.
Homework Directions

Your homework assignment is to write a minimum of three paragraphs that explain:

1. A compare and contrast of the stages of grief depicted in Hawthorne’s “The Wives of the
Dead” and Avengers: Endgame
2. Your own personal reactions to the double-entry journal assignment they participated in
within the class.
3. Your reaction of the short story. Did you understand it? What was difficult about it?
What did you like or dislike about it?