Degree

BS (Social Sciences & Liberal Arts)

Faculty / School

School of Economics and Social Sciences (SESS)

Department

Department of Social Sciences & Liberal Arts

Date of Award

Spring 2023

Date of Submission

2023-08-29

Advisor

Rahma Muhammad Mian, Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences

Committee

Irum Iqbal Hussain, Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences

Project Type

SSLA Culminating Experience

Access Type

Restricted Access

Abstract

Grief is an emotional experience that every human undergoes across their lifetime. Due to the significance of this human experience, it is important to analyze how it is portrayed across cultural texts as they not only represent human experiences but also help humans in navigating these experiences, as well as coping with associated emotions. Anime is one such medium which can be analyzed. This study aimed to analyze how portrayals in non-Western media such as anime can be nuanced and sensitive, and if they can align with perspectives that set their focus aside from dominant theoretical approaches to grief studies and intervention. This is important to examine not only because anime is a distinct medium, but also because most theoretical frameworks in psychology, especially those dominant in the West, do not fully acknowledge the maintenance of a continued emotional bond with the loved one who has been lost as proposed by Klass et al.’s (1996) theory of Continuing Bonds. This theory is more relevant to Eastern cultures, particularly Japanese culture. The present research has selected the text, Violet Evergarden (2018), a thirteen-episode anime TV series for the analysis. The series was subject to three kinds of analysis: narrative, visual/ aesthetic and cultural. The analysis found that Violet Evergarden (2018) aligns with alternative approaches to grief, such as continuing bonds, and provides a complex, diverse, and nuanced portrayal of grief.

Pages

v, 73

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