Polite Dissent

Monolith #10 “Everything Old is New Again, part two”
Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, writers
Phil Winslade, penciler

I’m going to take a slightly different view from other reviewers because I find nothing wrong with what Tilt is saying in this issue.

At some point, most of us have been taught the “Five Stages of Grief”: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance. Originally conceived by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, they’ve become fairly entrenched in popular culture. While they provide a basic understanding of the grieving process, they are a vast oversimplification of the situation.

A better way to look at it is that there are five common phases experienced by people who are grieving. The order is not that important; people will bounce between stages and even cycle through them repeatedly. There is no final destination of “acceptance” as once thought. It’s also important to realize that there is no discrete line separating the various stages. A person can be both angry and depressed, for instance. People who do not follow the classic progression of stages are not grieving unhealthily or poorly; grief is a very individual process.

Tilt, in issue #10 of Monolith, is a good example of how complex grief can be. She has just recently found out that she is H.I.V. positive. Explaining the situation to the golem Monolith, she first says:

I did do bad things and now I am being punished.

This strikes most of us as a shocking and unhealthy attitude. However, remember that she just found out some devastating news and is still coming to terms with it. More than anything, this is her anger speaking. She is angry at herself for some past bad choices, and feels that she is being punished. In my experience, such thoughts of punishment are a common reaction to this kind of news and not harmful. If she stays fixated on this concept of punishment then it could be unhealthy, but generally it is not destructive.

Next, she says:

I was a whore and there’s no changing what I did…only what I will do in the time I have.

This shows some level of acceptance of her situation. Tilt is perfect example of how a person can be both angry and accepting at the same time. As time moves on, she’ll no doubt also experience the other stages of grief, some several times, and not necessarily in any fixed order. Her thoughts and reactions as shown in Monolith #10 are perfectly normal given her situation.

I agree with other reviewers that the dialogue is clunky in spots and the ending a little too deus ex machina, but the process of grieving was well shown. I’ll definitely miss this book when it’s gone.
Further Reading:

• A site showing the “classic” view of the Five Stages of Grief.
• A site highlighting the more modern (and in my opinion, more enlightened) view of the grieving process.