Parental grief and misunderstanding in Maeve Brennan's Eldest Child

Eldest Child by Maeve Brennan

The story, Eldest Child by Maeve Brennan, is a sad and moving story about how parents feel when they've lost a child. Upon reading the story I had a strong urge to comfort Mr. And Mrs. Bagot. Although the circumstances as to the death of the Bagots' son remained a mystery, I was beginning to understand exactly how Mrs. Bagot felt -- her desperation, her loneliness, her despair, her anguish towards the loss of her son. I could understand how she reacted the way she did as Maeve Brennan gave voice to how Mrs. Bagot felt. One could empathize with her and understand that at that moment, she didn't care about anything else other than the safe journey of her son back to the Creator. The anguish of a mother over her son's death is often hard to put to words perhaps because nothing could describe the extent of anguish a mother feels. There is nothing anyone could do or say that could comfort a grieving mother.

At the same time, the story also criticizes the way Mrs. Bagot reacted to the death of her son -- only seeing her pain and not the pain of the people around her, particularly her husband. It seemed as if Mrs. Bagot was expecting her husband to grieve in the same way she was grieving but people grieve in different ways, in their own unique ways. On the other hand, it showed a husband who seemed to think of himself more than he thinks of his wife. Mr. Bagot thought that her wife was acting the way she does because she was pleading for attention. Although it was clear that he was also grieving for the loss of his son, his primary thought was of moving forward and all he wanted was for his wife to come back to how she was before, failing to realize that experiences and circumstances change people. In the end, he didn't understand his wife.