Loss In Stone Carvers By Jane Urquhart

Loss is a state of being without, usually accompanied by grief, which is a reaction to the disruption of attachment. The loss of loved one is considered to be a major disruption in a person’s life, having an impact on the relationships, health, and morale of the person concerned. The novel Stone Carvers by Jane Urquhart shows the different experiences the characters go through in their distinct losses. In her novel, the protagonists are undergoing an emotional state of sadness in the past that influence their actions in the present. The impacts on the characters are seen through: hopefulness of one’s return; regret of what should have been; and isolation of self to society. The protagonist are focusing entirely on their impacts in the past …show more content…
Klara saws how his grandfather hope for the return of his brother through “Whenever he could her grandfather included a likeness of Tilman in his carving, hoping perhaps that the God for whom he carved would interpret this as a petition or a prayer.”(Urquhart, 94) Even though Tilman’s return is barely believable, John Becker still includes him in his carving as a petition to God for his much awaited reappearance. Because of this hope, he “turns away from reality takes place and a clinging to the object through the medium of a hallucinatory wishful psychosis” (Freud, 244) making him ignore everyone around him, including his granddaughter, Klara. According to Branach-Kallas, that he remains blind to the fact that his granddaughter is still with him and asking for help with her own carving of the abbess, similar to his grandson’s ability. Ignoring the days in the present is also seen when “Klara could not get over a feeling of distance, a sense that she was not only separated from the community she lived but also that she was becoming oddly disassociated from the trappings of the only home she had ever known.” (Urquhart, 226) Klara tries to ignore everyone around her because of the pain that Eamon caused her making her afraid that she will be distracted in her own state of routine. According to Freud, she experiences profound mourning due to the fact that she still has the painful memory etched in her mind and the same loss of interest of the outside world which is her community. Through constantly recalling him, she don’t have the same capacity to love again, thus, leaving her with no purpose to other interest. In her present self, she wishes that something will happen in her own life, making her fear that wish that can change her neutral habits and will turn into regret, once