The Obliging Dead: An Unbelievable Trope

A common theme or plot in literature is mourning for a dead spouse/partner/family member/friend. The living spouse/partner/family member/friend struggles with the need to move on, mainly survivor's guilt.

The internal conflict is resolved when the living spouse/partner/family member/friend determines that the dead spouse/partner/family member/friend would want them to be happy. The dead want the living to move on, marry again, change careers...to do, in fact, everything that the living are planning to do anyway.

My reaction to these novels is always "Really?".

I have the same reaction when the living spouse/partner/family member/friend determines that the dead spouse/partner/family member/friend has fully embraced being dead, is at peace, has entirely let go grudges regarding the past, etc. etc. 

I think Supernatural (as well as various religions and mythologies) are more accurate: the dead that hang around are not forgiving and happy and self-sacrificing. Their irritation at being dead eventually becomes fury followed by madness.

I agree with C.S. Lewis that the dead who do move on are probably more indifferent to our concerns than makes us completely comfortable (they've got other things to worry about). If they do have an opinion, it may be more acerbic and objective than the living are ready to cope with.

However, it is terribly difficult to convince the living that perhaps they aren't the center of (even) the world of the dead.

Take reactions to Persuasion by Jane Austen. When Captain Wentworth visits Uppercross, Mrs. Musgrove
corners him with eulogies to her dead son:

"Poor dear fellow!" continued Mrs Musgrove; "he was grown so steady, and such an excellent correspondent, while he was under your care! Ah! it would have been a happy thing, if he had never left you. I assure you, Captain Wentworth, we are very sorry he ever left you."

There was a momentary expression in Captain Wentworth's face at this speech, a certain glance of his bright eye, and curl of his handsome mouth, which convinced Anne, that instead of sharing in Mrs Musgrove's kind wishes, as to her son, he had probably been at some pains to get rid of him...Captain Wentworth should be allowed some credit for the self-command with which he attended to her large fat sighings over the destiny of a son, whom alive nobody had cared for. 

Some literary critics, male and female, are appalled--I say, appalled!--by Jane Austen's callousness. They sniffily write things like, "It's hard to explain Austen's cruelty here. It must be because she wasn't a wife and mother."

Except wife and mother Agatha Christie echoes Austen's sentiment in one of her mysteries. To
paraphrase:

"Oh, if only Roger had lived," the woman exclaimed. The narrator reflected that the woman might feel differently if Roger had lived. How easy it is to sanctify and sacralize the memory of the dead--to remember them as entirely different from how they actually were.

No matter how unacceptable, the dead are more than sentimental figures. How much more interesting they become in literature when they are not simply bolsters of living people's wants. Make them scary, horrific, amusing, ironic, odd, boring, ill-remembered. Anything except a kind of pep rally squad for the living.