The Management of Grief

Shaila Bhave is the main character and narrator of this story. Her narrative voice is both quiet and sharp, and her most defining quality is her impartial self-awareness. This is also a problematic quality, as it means that she is unable to blind herself to the terrible thing that has happened to her. She notices the self-deceptions of the other mourners around her, and she notices her own self-deceptions as well; she cannot take solace, as her friend Kusum ultimately does, in an Indian ashram, and views such an act as “running away.” Instead, she comes to an understanding of her new life as an immigrant widow as its own sort of spiritual pilgrimage, one that is in the world rather than apart from it.

The ending of the story—and therefore Bhave’s destiny—is ambiguous and could be read as either hopeful or grim. The fact that Bhave hears her family telling her “one last time” that her “time has come” (197) could be seen to indicate that she is on the verge of committing suicide, as could the fact that she leaves her shopping package on a park bench before walking away in a random direction.