Children, Children's Stories and Facing the Concept of Death: An Analysis of the Story " Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes" Based on Kubler-Ross Model

Eternity، death and the fear of death are among concepts and notions that children from certain age face. One of the most important methods for learning the skill of facing such philosophical concepts is using stories and selecting appropriate stories to serve such purpose needs knowledge، interpretation and analysis. In this paper، a realistic story of a twelve-year-old girl who is on the verge of death because of cancer is chosen and analyzed. According to Kubler-Ross facing death has five stages: denial، anger، bargaining، depression and acceptance. Sadako quickly goes through the first and second phases of the psychology of grief being denial and anger. However، in the third phase of Sadako’s life as well as the plot of the story moves to a different plane and situation. Sadako employs myth، playing and story to overcome the fear. From this view point، playing، ritual and death join one another in a way that eventually this game- myth or playing- the story، helps Sadako and his associates، in the first place، and all the audiences of the story، in the second place، to accept and overcome the fear of death. Mythotherapy and eternity can also be found in Persian mystical texts such as the story of “the Crane and the Roc”.