Importance Of Death In M. L. Stedman's The Light Between Oceans

Victor Hugo once wrote: “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise”. Grief never ends. It haunts and buren 's someone 's life for years. In M. L. Stedman’s The Light Between Oceans, grief, loss, and healing is a recurring theme in the novel, as all characters go through at least one devastating loss. Hannah’s husband has died, her daughter’s alive but not with her. Isabel and Tom have two miscarriages and a stillborn baby. These situations are hard for everyone to cope with, and some never heal from these situations. These situations are devastating for one but good for another. It takes time and strength to heal, and after years of loss and grief some characters find happiness in end and within themselves.
Hannah Roennfeldt …show more content…
Tom has returned from serving in the war and moves to complete isolation on Janus.“The men he had accompanied to the border of life would be mourned by a mother, but on the battlefield, the loved ones were far away and beyond imagining” (93). Many people died during the war, and Tom had to see the men die which left him scarred. Tom has seen many deaths in the war, but has overcome the trauma. Even on Janus, Tom encounters more death. Tom is faced with of two miscarriages, a stillborn baby, and the death of the father of Lucy-Grace. When Lucy-Grace washes up on Janus with her dead father, Tom is forced to make a decision whether he will bury the dead man’s body in silence or will go public and lose the living baby Isabel had grown fond of, so he decides to bury him: “Bury them. Mark the grave. Salute, and walk away. That 's how it was. Hoping for the one with the most bits blown off: Tom went cold at the thought that there had seemed nothing strange about that back then” (100). It all seems too familiar to Tom as he bury’s Lucy-Grace’s biological father. For years Tom is around death, and it seems as though it never stops. Once all the deaths do stop, the baby he has raised with Isbel is given back to her biological mother, leaving Tom with another loss: “Tom stood paralyzed by the sight of the two of them--the pain etched on their faces--the two he had promised Bill Graysmark he would protect and care for” (218). Tom feels great pain as he is forced to leave the two people he loves most, Lucy and Isabel. Tom is encountered once again with death when Isabel dies of Cancer twenty years later, however Tom feels a sense of healing when Lucy-Grace comes to visit him: “Tom felt a pang as he remembered the day she had presented it to him, and his terror at the breach of the rules. And he was suddenly awash again with the loving and the losing of Isabel” (341). As Tom gives Lucy-Grace all the