Sebastian's Grief

In the last week I’ve been thinking about how enormous the jump is for Sebastian. From being incredibly melancholy to being ok after marrying Olivia. I taked to a therapist as well to talk over what happens to a person in this condition and he said its like living in a little glass bottle with all your possessions and then everything is turned upside down. You don’t know which was is up at first but slowly you put thing back together and adjust. Allthough we seem to be always growing towards the end its always so abrupt to us. We keep it out of our mind and it isn’t something we are conditioned too (like brave new world) even though we are surrounded by and a lot of us live in fear of it.

So I’ve been doing some research into the grief cycle and what happens to a person when they’ve lost someone they love. I’ve never actually ”Lost” anyone I truly loved. Misplaced maybe. But Sebastian is convinced at the beginning of Act 2 that his sister has been DEVOURED by the sea. So my big question was… what does a person do? I found an amazing cycle called the Kubler-Ross grief cycle. I was fairly impressed at how dead on it was with Sebastian so this is what I’ve found.

Sebastian in the first scene has already worked his way through the shock stage and the denial stage and enters the scene in the anger stage. Probably also fired up by something that has happened between he and Anthonio that confused him. I cannot stress how vulnerable Sebastian is at the beginning of the play. He has lost his greatest human connection so he is always waiting for another one t come along which is why he is confused by Anthonio and then by Olivia. He is reaching out trying to replace his sister. (sorry about that tangent) so he enters the scene in the anger stage and by the end of the first scene with Anthonio he is into the bargaining stage. He just needs to get out of their and he needs to be alone. In their next encounter Sebastian has seemed to make the jump to depression stage and needs a friend more then ever which is why he is obviously embarrassed and apologetic for the way he acted before. When he first see’s Olivia he is thrown into the testing sta!
ge because, now he has decided to accept that and is testing other realistic relationships. This is why I think he is so open to the random encounter with Olivia. Why not follow a friendly beautiful woman to her home? It isn’t until right before he actually see’s Viola that he has reached the acceptance stage. He has accepted he will never see her again and has started a new life in Illyria when he gets into another fight with Toby and Andrew and then is overjoyed to see Anthonio.

It should be known that the grief cycle doesn’t always work out as planned. There are sometimes cycles or relapses that occur. And I think that this might happen to Sebastian. There I don’t know if its possible for someone to get over the person they loved most in the word in such a short amount of time.

A common problem with the above cycle is that people get stuck in one phase. Thus a person may become stuck in denial, never moving on from the position of not accepting the inevitable future. When it happens, they still keep on denying it, such as the person who has lost their job still going into the city only to sit on a park bench all day.
Getting stuck in denial is common in 'cool' cultures (such as in Britain, particularly Southern England) where expressing anger is not acceptable. The person may feel that anger, but may then repress it, bottling it up inside.


Shock stage: Initial paralysis at hearing the bad news.
Denial stage: Trying to avoid the inevitable.
Anger stage: Frustrated outpouring of bottled-up emotion.
Bargaining stage: Seeking in vain for a way out.
Depression stage: Final realization of the inevitable.
Testing stage: Seeking realistic solutions.
Acceptance stage: Finally finding the way forward.


Other Thing I’ve been working on:
I started working on speed and agility through a fencers routine. As well as working on their breathing pattern. Fencers generally breath through both passages and exhale through their mouth when they attack. It is a weird feeling because I’m not used to taking in so much oxygen but when doing something strenuous it works really well. Fencers are incredibly agile, quick and their stamina is out of control.


Movement:
Movement is very important for Sebastian because he is always on guard he is kinesthetically ready for anything. Except in the first few scenes when he is so melancholy. He would be sloppy with his training due to his anger and depression.

Leads from his chest/ heart: is not over inflated but just proud and leads with his heart perhaps?
Yes definitely leads from his heart but is strong and fights with his heart as well. He is intelligent and so his movements are quick and strong. He isn’t a mental genius but he is when it come to fighting. His movements are very sure everything is perfectly planned within a seconds notice… maybe not when he is upset though because that’s a different beast. When he is upset he might be a little sloppy. Drunk on emotion? “Life is shit” sort of attitude although im sure he’s pulling through it