The Importance Of Grief In Emily Carroll's The Nesting Place

The second “wolf” in this story is drastically subtler than the outwardly terrifying worm creature, this wolf is less physical and more conceptual. This ferocious and terrifying “wolf” is the universally known terrible feeling that we call grief. Grief is defined as “keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret.” This definition fits perfectly with the story presented in Emily Carroll’s “Through the Woods” in the short story “The Nesting Place”. Our dreary yet relatable main character Mabel, or Bel, is not only haunted by the monster in this story; she is also haunted by the grief that comes with the loss of her mother. The story begins with Bel speaking of a memory that she has from her childhood …show more content…
This type of hardship sticks around and forever scars a person, in this case the young woman, Bel. As the massage continues we see it said that this monster is unnamable and impossible to actually see. This is partially true as the mental pain and suffering caused by grief is entirely mental, the side effects caused by this grief is the part that outsiders are able to view and analyze. Also playing on the aspect of this monster being on the inside is the concept of being “eaten alive from the inside.” This works with the idea of grief being a silent killer type “wolf”. The gruesome word choice and mental image that comes from the concept of being eaten alive also aids in the process of making grief such a terrifying wolf for this story. The entire page is taken up by the quote, making its message the more ominous. The background for the spidery white text that states these lines is a dark menacing background. The background is a mix of messy black and gray patches framed by the ghostly white outlines of hands reaching towards the center of the page. The text alone is menacing enough to cause the reader to realize that a dangerous topic is being