Grief as Meaning Making in Loss in Kyung Sook Shin’s Novel I’ll Be Right There
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.9744/katakita.14.3.%25pKeywords:
bildungsroman, grief, loss, meaning reconstruction, self-narrativeAbstract
This paper analyses grief as a process of meaning making in loss for the characters Jung Yoon and Miru in Kyung-Sook Shin’s novel I’ll Be Right There (2014), a bildungsroman grounded in the experience of loss amid South Korea’s politically turbulent 1980s. This study explores why some individuals are destroyed by loss while others adapt through a comparative analysis of characters with opposing grief outcomes using Gillies and Neimeyer’s meaning reconstruction model of grief (2006) and Worden’s four tasks of mourning (2018). The findings reveal that Miru’s failed sense making traps her in a destructive cycle leading to her suicide, whereas Jung Yoon’s gradual identity change and internalized sense making facilitates an adaptive integration of loss. This contrast demonstrates that grief is not a series of stages to be passively endured, but an active and individualized process of identity reformation whose success or failure determines one's ability to live on.
References
Gillies, J., & Neimeyer, R. A. (2006). Loss, grief, and the search for significance: Toward a model of meaning reconstruction in bereavement. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 19(1), 31-65. https://doi.org/10.1080/10720530500311182
Graham, S. (2019). A history of bildungsroman. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316479926.001
Rüggemeier, A. (2023). Bildungsroman. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Literature. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190201098.013.1274
Shin, K. (2014). I’ll be right there (K. Sora, Trans.). Other Press, LLC. (Original work published 2010).
Worden, J. W. (2018). Grief counseling and grief therapy: A handbook for the mental health practitioner (5th ed.). Springer Publishing Company, LLC.
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