"Tears for Sale" is told from the perspective of a child. This child's naïve curiosity about death allows for objective details to be communicated—observations uninformed by personal experiences of grief or cultural awareness of the purpose of a hired mourner.
Khazna is a professional mourner, also known as a wailing woman or Moirologist. Positions similar to this can be found in many cultures around the world, including some parts of African, Asian, and Middle Eastern cultures. Historically, it is known to have been part of Ancient Egyptian culture and is also frequently mentioned in records of ancient Semitic cultures that appear in Biblical history.
The function of a wailing woman may seem somewhat foreign to a contemporary American audience, where the cultural practice of grief is highly personal. Oftentimes, when grieving, extended family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances expect for grief to be compartmentalized away from functions and responsibilities, even just a week after a loss, to avoid awkwardness or unnecessary stress for those who are not grieving.
However, in some other cultures, one person's loss is considered the loss of the whole community. For instance, in Jewish culture today, there is a is a seven-day grieving period immediately following a loss. After that, there is a thirty day period in which the family is expected to continue grieving. Then, a year after the loss of a loved one, the deceased family's loss is publicly acknowledged, oftentimes in a synagogue. In this way, the persons who have experienced such significant losses feel understood and supported through the entire grieving process, from the immediate feelings of denial and shock to the sadness, anger, and bargaining that follow, and finally to the moment of acceptance and moving on.
Similar to these practices, Khazna's job is to show those who are grieving (or who have grieved previously) that the community has acknowledged their grief, and are there is ongoing community support for those suffering. The child is not able to communicate this context, but she is attuned to the effect Khazna has on others at funerals:
It seemed as though Khazna was not lamenting that one dead man, our neighbor, but rather, was weeping for all the town's dead, arousing one woman's anguish over a lost husband, and in another sorrow over a departed brother.
As Khazna wails and chants, she helps to unlock the grief in those present to help them empathize; her loud display is ultimately healing for the whole community.
The story takes a sudden turn at the climax when Khazna loses her own daughter to Typhoid. The plot, which includes chronological, pieced-together memories of the narrator, links the child's curious observances to the child's perplexed observance of how Khazna's personal grieving differs from her community grieving. The reader can piece-meal a deeper meaning from the text about the community's role in times of grieving by comparing Khazna's reactions.
After her daughter dies, those who are present at the funeral try to serve Khanzna by taking up her mantle as a wailing woman, but they fail miserably:
A few of the women tried to weep, to cry out, but she looked at them in such a stunned way, as though rejecting their demonstrations of grief, and they gradually fell silent, astonished and indignant.
Khazna was able to help others grieve with lamentation, but she does not seem to perceive others' attempts to lament as genuine. The text does imply that perhaps she has affected grief—or "sold" her tears to the community—which has cheapened their displays in her eyes. But the closing line brushes this cynical reading aside, speaking to the theme that the point of community support through grief is to simply "be" with those who are grieving, wherever they are at.
Instead of trying to offer solace to those with losses before their time by affecting grief, we should simply be with those who are grieving, taking cues from how they choose to grieve and empathizing. For example, if someone loses a spouse or child, instead of relating their grief to your own, you should stay on the subject of their grief; if they do not want to weep or talk about it, just sit beside them and be there to support them. You may be able to empathize because of your own losses, but your grief should not dislocate the other person's grief.
The story is told by an unnamed narrator, who is recounting her memories of Khazna, a woman who is both a professional mourner and beautician for brides. The story is told in three simple parts. The narrator describes Khazna’s duties as mourner, expertly wailing and covering her face with indigo; next, Khazna is described preparing brides for their wedding, including giving them advice about lovemaking, and generally being the life of the party. A final section tells about the death of Khazna’s only daughter, and how, despite her profession, Khazna has no tears and mourns silently.
As professional mourner, Khazna performs a vital service in her village by honoring tradition. The fact that she is not actually sad is irrelevant to her performance, which is more about outward forms and respectability. In her capacity as bride beautician, her gaiety is similarly a kind of professional attitude; her role is to enforce bridal traditions, extending even to attending the door of the bedroom while the couple consummate their marriage.
The final part of the story, in which Khazna experiences true loss with the death of her daughter, highlights the difference between her official functions, and the role of tradition, and genuine suffering. The narrator is surprised to see Khazna sitting silent in the corner beside the corpse of her child, and in fact her uncharacteristic silence causes the other women to be silent as well. One way of understanding this ending is that Khazna, after attending so many funerals, has no one to perform similar duties on her behalf. But it is also true that Khazna’s grief this time is real, and in the face of real loss, it seems, her professional talents are useless.
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