Grief and Loss in Instructions for Dancing
Introduction: Love as Both Risk and Reward
In Instructions for Dancing, Nicola Yoon presents grief not as a temporary sorrow but as an inescapable condition of love. The novel’s central thematic claim is that love and loss are inseparable—yet choosing to love anyway is the only meaningful response to a world defined by impermanence. Both protagonists, Evie and X, carry deep wounds: Evie from her parents’ divorce and X from the sudden death of his best friend Clay. Their parallel griefs shape how they approach relationships, dancing, and the future. Through Evie’s visions of heartbreak and her eventual reclamation of joy, the novel argues that grief can either close a person off or become the foundation for deeper connection.
Thematic Development: Three Stages of Grief
1. Evie’s Initial Withdrawal: The Divorce as a Rupture
The story opens with Evie purging her romance novels after learning of her father’s infidelity. She tells her mother she “can’t unknow” what happened and longs for the version of herself that still believed in love. This moment establishes grief as a loss of innocence: Evie has been betrayed not only by her father but by the entire romantic narrative she once trusted. Her grief manifests as cynicism and avoidance—she refuses her father’s calls, declines her mother’s offers to bake together, and shoves all her beloved books into the Little Free Library.
The Instructions for Dancing book she receives from the mysterious old woman is therefore a direct challenge to her grief. It offers a new set of instructions—not for dancing, but for learning to trust again. Evie’s initial resistance to the book mirrors her resistance to love itself.
2. X’s Grief Over Clay: Vulnerability and Shared Pain
X carries a different but equally powerful grief: the preventable death of his best friend Clay, killed by a distracted driver. In Chapter 33 (The Time We Get), X reveals that the anniversary of Clay’s death has just passed. He describes the anger he still feels—that an adult should have known better, that Clay “died in the street” for nothing. Evie stays with him, not offering platitudes but simply being present. This scene is pivotal because it shows grief as something that can be shared rather than endured alone. X’s willingness to be vulnerable—to cry in front of Evie, to let her stay—models a healthier response to loss than Evie has attempted.
Later, when they dance to Mrs. Chabra’s Bollywood music, X transforms his sorrow into play. This dance becomes a metaphor for the novel’s central insight: grief need not be the final word; joy can coexist with pain.
3. Evie’s Vision and Final Choice: Choosing Love Despite Loss
The most direct exploration of grief comes when Evie receives a vision of X’s death eight months in the future. For over three weeks she cuts off contact, overwhelmed by the certainty of losing him. In Chapter 54 (One Million, Eight Hundred and Fourteen Thousand and Four Hundred Seconds), she articulates the core grief paradox: “The problem with broken hearts isn’t that they kill you. It’s that they don’t.”
Her father’s words during a painful conversation (Chapter 52) offer a counterpoint: “The pain is the proof of a life well lived and loved.” Evie initially rejects this as a “shitty answer,” but the novel ultimately endorses it. In Chapter 60 (The Future), during the Argentine tango at her father’s wedding, Evie sees the full life she and X will share—writing music, dancing, making love, and the daily declarations of love. She also sees that some days she will be okay and others not, but she consciously chooses love anyway, catching his hand and holding on. This moment transforms grief from a paralyzing fear into a reason to treasure the present.
Character Connections: Evie and X’s Shared Fear
Both Evie and X fear loss, but they express it differently. Evie withdraws and builds walls; X openly grieves and reaches out. Their relationship forces Evie to confront her own avoidance. When she runs away after seeing X’s death, she repeats the same pattern she used after her parents’ divorce: cut off the source of potential pain. X, however, refuses to let her disappear. He finds her, writes songs for her, and waits. Their connection demonstrates that love can be a mutual antidote to grief—not by eliminating loss but by making the time before it meaningful.
Evie’s best friend Sophie and sister Danica also grieve in their own ways: Sophie over a breakup, Danica over her parents’ divorce. The novel uses these parallel griefs to show that loss is universal, but so is the resilience it can foster.
Symbol Connections: Objects of Grief and Hope
- The Instructions for Dancing book: Initially a literal guide to dance steps, it becomes a symbol of the instruction to embrace love despite risk. Evie retrieves it from the dance studio and returns it to the Little Free Library only after understanding that her power was never a curse—it was a gift to see love, not just heartbreak.
- Argentine tango: The dance Evie and X perform at the wedding is intimate, improvisational, and physically trusting. The tango represents the willingness to follow and lead without guarantees—a perfect metaphor for love in the face of loss.
- The Little Free Library: The place where Evie gives away her books and later returns the dancing book. It symbolizes the cycle of giving and receiving stories, and the idea that grief, like books, can be shared and transformed.
- “Black Box” song lyrics: X’s band’s song about being trapped in darkness mirrors the claustrophobia of grief. The act of writing and performing it becomes a way to externalize pain.
Complexity: Reframing Loss as Part of Love’s Whole
The novel refuses a simple happy ending. Evie still knows X will die young; the grief is not removed. Instead, the complexity lies in her changed relationship to that knowledge. When the old woman reveals that Evie’s power was to see love, not just heartbreak, Evie realizes she had focused only on the endings. The visions’ beauty—the couple dancing under moonlight, the playful arguments, the shared silences—had always outnumbered the final separation.
This complicates the common refrain “it’s better to have loved and lost.” The novel does not argue that the pain is worth it because of the love; it argues that the love and the pain are inextricable, and that trying to avoid one means forfeiting the other. Evie’s final decision to dance with X, knowing he will die, is not a denial of grief but an acceptance of its place in a full life.
Study Questions and Answers
1. How does Evie’s grief over her parents’ divorce affect her relationships in the first half of the novel?
Evie responds to her father’s betrayal by rejecting all romantic love. She gives away her romance novels, avoids her father’s calls, and initially resists her attraction to X. Her grief makes her cynical; she tells Martin that love “isn’t worth all the pain.” This withdrawal is a self-protective measure that almost prevents her from forming the very connection that could help her heal.
2. In what ways does X’s grief over Clay differ from Evie’s grief over her parents’ divorce?
X openly expresses his grief—he cries in front of Evie, describes Clay’s death in detail, and channels his pain into music. Evie, by contrast, bottles her emotions and tries to appear fine. X’s vulnerability allows him to receive comfort, while Evie’s stoicism isolates her. The novel suggests that sharing grief, rather than suppressing it, is essential to moving forward.
3. How does the Argentine tango symbolise the novel’s message about love and loss?
The tango requires both partners to be fully present, responsive, and trusting. It cannot be danced while worrying about the next step—only by committing to the current moment. This mirrors Evie’s final choice: she dances with X knowing he will die, but she focuses on the spin, the touch, the music. The tango becomes a physical argument for living in the present despite an uncertain future.
4. Why does the old woman say she gave Evie the power to see love, not just heartbreak?
The old woman reframes Evie’s entire experience. Evie had fixated on the tragic endings of every couple she observed, but the visions also contained years of joy, intimacy, and ordinary happiness. By calling it a “gift,” the old woman insists that the love within each vision is more significant than the loss. Evie’s mistake was to see only the conclusion, not the full story.
5. What does Evie’s father mean when he says “the pain is the proof of a life well lived and loved”?
Evie’s father offers a philosophical counterpoint to her despair. He argues that deep grief is evidence of deep love—that the capacity to feel shattered by loss is itself a measure of how fully someone lived and loved. While Evie initially rejects this as unhelpful, the novel’s ending endorses it: Evie chooses love not despite the coming pain but because the pain will prove how real the love was.