FREE ESSAY ON GRIEF BY C. K. WILLIAMS

GRIEF BY C. K. WILLIAMS

Essay 13:
In C. K. Williams' Grief, the speaker explores the all too common experience of losing a
loved one. The speaker describes the pain involved in sitting helplessly by, only able to
watch, while another human being slowly withdraws into death. The poem Grief, like many
of C.K. Williams' poems, is a maelstrom of memories, thoughts, emotions, and other human
experiences. In this particular poem, the speaker is torn by the slow death of his
elderly mother. His attempts to console himself and his family leads him to believe that
she has lived a full life, and is now released from her suffering, headed toward a place
of serenity and repose. How does this phrase peace of the earth, (32) suggest a release
from the suffering of dying?
In the poem entitled Grief, by C. K. Williams, the reader is taken through one man's
painful experience of watching his mother's slow death. Williams is renowned for his
ability to capture the emotions and concepts of the human spirit. Perhaps The Boston
Globe's critic, Jonathan Aaron, put it best in his review, stating:
A matchless explorer of the burdens of consciousness, C. K. Williams has always written
brilliantly about human pain, that which we inflict upon others and upon ourselves, and
that which we experience in dreading what we're fated for. 
Williams does not dispute that death is not a natural thing, in fact it is something that
we are all fated for, however he attempts to illustrate the pain and human emotion that
are associated with death. In the poem Grief, Williams is also successful in
demonstrating the transition from the anguish experienced while a loved one withdraws
into death, to the eventual rest the deceased enter. The phrase peace of the earth is
suggestive of the body's final resting place, in which the soul is liberated from the
body in death, and the individual experiences a release from suffering. 
Throughout the poem, the speaker attempts to identify and understand exactly what grief
is. His mother's suffering torments him, and when she finally comes to death she enters
the peace of the earth. The word peace means a state of tranquillity of quiet. A state of
such tranquillity and quiet, like that which is associated with death. When one is dead,
it is believed that the body is laid to rest and the soul is freed to a state of
tranquillity. The word peace also refers to a relief from disquieting or oppressive
thoughts or emotions, and harmony in personal relations. These meanings can be applied in
two very differing situations. On the one hand, it is the deceased mother who comes to
experience peace through death, however, on the other hand the son too undergoes a sense
of peace or calming sense of mind after his mother's suffering has ended.
In this poem, Williams also focuses on the symbolism of life and death in association
with the word earth. In reality, the word earth denotes soil. Yet In all practicality,
this reference to the soil in which the dead are interred has, however, a more symbolic
meaning -- the sphere of mortal life. The mind frame that Williams sets is one where the
earth is a mortal world in which physical suffering exists and the body is unprotected
against it. Eventually the body gives way to death, and the final outcome of the mortal
earth is a death that delivers us from suffering into peace. Many religions identify
earth with the human body and its origin. The word earth also literally means the mortal
human body, and in faiths such as the Christian tradition, man is believed to have been
borne of ashes [earth], and to ashes he will return. 
Thus is Williams' argument that death's inevitability has caused the grieving process to
become such a normality that we are often unsure as to whether we even experience it.
Other figurative language used in this poem that can be directly correlated to Williams'
depiction and identification of grief, is the phrase countenance of loss (32). These
words are portray the demeanor of has suffered the loss of another, and undergone the
grieving process. The countenance, or mental composure, is one of suffering and anguish
which results from the loss of the loved one. Death's natural occurrence is one that
affects us all. Whether its influence is felt personally, or through the suffering of
others, the greatest endurance against death's melancholy is the cleansing process of
grieving.
SOURCES
Aaron, Jonathan, review of The Vigil, by C.K. Williams, The Boston Globe.
Williams, C. K. Grief. In The Vigil, 29-32. New York: The Noonday Press, 1998.