Loss Theme Analysis

In Lincoln in the Bardo, Saunders sets forth the notion that mourning is a process that ideally ends in acceptance. Loss is difficult, he upholds, because it denotes the end of something cherished. At the center of the book is the loss President Lincoln experiences when he’s forced to say goodbye to his beloved child, Willie. Distraught, he finds the idea of carrying on without his son unfathomable. By the end of the novel, though, he begins to make peace with Willie’s passing, riding off into the night with a sense that he’s been made “less rigid” by this loss. In turn, Saunders shows that—though painful—the process of mourning can lead to acceptance and even, to a certain extent, positive growth.

Using a collection of excerpts culled from various historical texts, Saunders describes just how incapacitating Willie’s death is for his father, President Lincoln. “One feels such love for the little ones,” states one essayist writing about the boy’s death, “and then the little one is gone! Taken! One is thunderstruck that such a brutal violation has occurred in what had previously seemed a benevolent world. From nothingness, there arose great love; now, its source nullified, that love, searching and sick, converts to the most abysmal suffering imaginable.” This passage likens the loss of “love” to “the most abysmal suffering imaginable,” an idea that speaks to just how painful the mourning process can be for a parent. In keeping with this, Lincoln sits in the cemetery after having looked upon his son’s lifeless form and thinks to himself, “What am I doing. What am I doing here. Everything nonsense now.” That “everything” has become “nonsense” after Willie’s death implies that loss can bring a sense of meaningless to a person’s life. Unsure of what to do now that he can’t be a father to Willie, the president is shocked by the seeming pointlessness of life, wondering how he can possibly go on as usual. “Lord, what is this?” he wonders. “All of this walking about, trying, smiling, bowing, joking? […] When he is to be left out here? Is a person to nod, dance, reason, walk, discuss? As before?” Lincoln’s loss, it seems, has depleted his investment in everyday life, rendering all normal proceedings unthinkably pointless. In this way, Saunders illustrates the harrowing and depleting effect of loss.

Although loss can throw a person into despair and a sense that life is meaningless, it can also do the opposite. Indeed, Saunders implies that great sadness and loss sometimes reinvigorate one’s appreciation for life itself. Roger Bevins III helps illustrate this point when he explains the way he feels after having attempted to commit suicide (note that in this moment he hasn’t yet admitted to himself that he has actually succeeded in killing himself): “Having come so close to losing everything, I am freed now of all fear, hesitation, and timidity, and, once revived, intend to devoutly wander the earth, imbibing, smelling, sampling, loving whomever I please.” For Bevins, the threat of “losing everything” suddenly enables him to embrace life and all its wonders in a way he couldn’t before. Of course, this is a slightly different dynamic than Lincoln’s experience with loss, since Lincoln mourns the loss not of his own life, but of his son’s. Still, the President undergoes a similar realization that loss, though full of grief, provides a chance for growth. Indeed, he acknowledges that wallowing in meaninglessness will do nothing to help his situation. In other words, he recognizes that “there is nothing left to do” about his bereavement. “Free myself of this darkness as I can, remain useful, not go mad,” he muses. “Think of [Willie], when I do, as being in some bright place, free of suffering, resplendent in a new mode of being.” By reframing his son’s death as something that has thrust the boy into some “resplendent […] new mode of being,” Lincoln refigures his entire approach to loss, resolving to “remain useful” instead of allowing his grief to decimate what’s left of his own life.

Lincoln’s resolve to “remain useful” in the face of loss is important, since he’s responsible for leading the Union in the Civil War. With countless Americans depending upon him, he can’t afford to flounder in the wake of Willie’s death. As he leaves the cemetery, he accepts that “the world was full of sorrow; that everyone labored under some burden of sorrow; that all were suffering; that whatever way one took in this world, one must try to remember that all were suffering […] and therefore one must do what one could to lighten the load of those with whom one came into contact.” Simply put, his acceptance of the reality of loss and “sorrow” renders him capable of moving forward as a man who is uniquely “situated” (as president) to lighten other people’s loads. Willie’s death, it seems, has refreshed his outlook on the Civil War and the role he must play as someone fighting to diminish the amount of “suffering” in America. As he makes his way home once again, then, Bevins and his friend Vollman describe Lincoln as “ready to believe anything of this world,” asserting that he has been “made less rigidly himself through his loss,” a transformation that has ultimately rendered him “quite powerful.” In turn, Saunders demonstrates that loss can become a catalyst for positive change, enabling a person to expand in unexpected ways despite the debilitating and demoralizing nature of the grief they might initially experience.