Changes in Relationships in Bereaved Families: Perspectives of Mothers Who Lost a Child to Cancer

The loss of a child greatly affects the dynamics of interpersonal relationships in bereaved families. This study explored the relationships in bereaved Korean families from the perspectives of mothers after the death of a child due to cancer. We conducted in-depth interviews with 15 bereaved mothers of a deceased child with childhood cancer. Thematic analysis identified 12 subthemes related to bereaved mothers’ struggles in grief within three significant themes based on family relationships: (a) relationship with husband; (b) relationship with surviving child or children; and (c) relationships with extended family members. Findings highlight bereaved mothers’ need to build supportive family relationships while acknowledging bereaved family members’ different grieving styles and their own challenges in grieving the loss of a child.

Unconditional: Exploring a Mother’s Love in Two Inadequate Representational Systems

The loss of a child is unarguably devastating. But what happens when a mother loses her child to the prison system? Unconditional is a multimedia project that explores the experiences of women whose children are in prison. While the incarceration of a loved one is devastating for all members of a family, mothers in particular bear the weight of responsibility and blame for their child’s behaviour. This project seeks to understand the complicated feelings of grief, shame, and helplessness that mothers go through when their child is arrested. Unconditional demonstrates the incredible bond between mother and child that remains unshaken, even in the most extreme of circumstances.

Unconditional: Exploring a Mother’s Love in Two Inadequate Representational Systems

The loss of a child is unarguably devastating. But what happens when a mother loses her child to the prison system? Unconditional is a multimedia project that explores the experiences of women whose children are in prison. While the incarceration of a loved one is devastating for all members of a family, mothers in particular bear the weight of responsibility and blame for their child’s behaviour. This project seeks to understand the complicated feelings of grief, shame, and helplessness that mothers go through when their child is arrested. Unconditional demonstrates the incredible bond between mother and child that remains unshaken, even in the most extreme of circumstances.

Some Kind of Bond

Some Kind Of Bond is a film about a cemetery: a quiet and lonely place filled with life and memories. We observe the casual and the diligent visitors; we talk with them about their thoughts on death, loss and grief. Some of them decide to invite us to their homes and together we go on an emotional journey through different personal experiences: the loss of a child, a grandparent and a mother.

Mystery in the poetics of romantic tragedy genre (“The Spaniards” by Mikhail Lermontov)

This paper focuses on the role of the poetics of mystery in the formation of the romantic trag-edy genre. “The Spaniards” by Mikhail Lermontov is considered as a characteristic example of this genre, manifesting “melodramatization” of tragedy and tendency towards genre-generic synthesis. The action of “The Spaniards” is based on events related to the sphere of the mysterious, which are exceptional in life and common in melodrama. Central to the plot is the motif of the loss of a child. The secret of Fernando’s birth and “ignobility” form the con-flict and organize two storylines (love and family) and two (everyday life – melodramatic, and existential – tragic) levels of conflict. Mystery also plays an important role in revealing the inner world and expressing the romantic ideal of the hero. The ability to comprehend the mysterious, to pass beyond human experience and logic is not only the motivation of his ac-tions, but it also connects the hero with the ideal sphere. The study examines how the charac-ters’ anticipation of the “terrible” motivates their moral choices. Analyzing the interaction of lyrical motifs, the author suggests the motif of mystery as important for implementing the main (tragic) conflict, unlike melodrama, where the functions of mystery are plot-forming, stimulating the spectator’s interest and maximizing the dramatic tension. Mystery in the plot and the lyrical concept of the tragedy contributes to the understanding of the essence of the romantic conflict, has a suggestive impact on the audience, and deepens the psychologism.