Analysis Of There Are No Children Here By Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

When confronted with the death of a loved one, it is simply impossible for one to ignore the irrational feelings they contract. As emotional creatures, it is natural for humans to exhibit a series of predictable plagues: this is called ‘The Grieving Process’. Originally coined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in 1969, the grieving process, while not the same for everyone, has five widely accepted stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. There is no particular order for any of these stages, with the exception of acceptance coming last, yet the grieving process gives us a detailed view of how to understand those going through great turmoil in their lives. Ricky, a young man introduced in chapter eight of There Are No Children Here,

Rickey, a denizen of the Henry Horner Homes, was good friends with a young man nicknamed ‘Bird Leg’. That was, until said young man died due to a street shooting courtesy of a rival gang. While Rickey was certainly not the only child of the Horner homes impacted by the death of Bird Leg, his reaction can arguably be the most descriptive. In chapter eight, immediately following Bird Leg’s death, Ricky’s stage of denial is shortly described as, “For the next two days, Rickey stayed in his apartment, refusing to eat or talk”(Kotlowitz, 73). This expression of loss can be argued to be a variety of griefs, pertaining not only to that of denial. Yet, ignoring reality by not acknowledging anyone, or eating anything. Denying that the world exists, and furthermore a cruel one where friends die, is easily attributed to the typical first stage of grief, which would in most cases, be denial. What follows denial in the grieving process can vary drastically from person to person, however, as first described by Kubler-Ross, the official plague following denial is anger. Rickey, as described in the book, can be summed up as such by many of his fellow classmates, and in some cases, victims. “His anger turned to rage. In class, he once choked another child so long and hard, that, in the words of Pharaoh, he “put him to sleep””(Koltlowitz, 73). After finally reentering the world after Bird Leg’s death, Rickey picked up