Review Of Nancy Sherman's 'The Moral Logic Of Survivor Guilt'

“... I could have come to the end of my life unsaved, still screaming in the dark, afraid,” from The Seventh Man by Haruki Murakami. The Seventh Man witnessed his best friend in the whole world dying and never forgave himself for letting K. go until he completely let go of all the guilt he had built up. What The Seventh Man was experiencing is known as survivor 's guilt; survivor 's guilt is when a person blames oneself for someone they knew or saw get hurt or killed in a traumatic event. Rightfully, The Seventh Man felt guilt, but he needs to forgive himself for not saving K. If The Seventh Man didn’t forgive himself and lived in guilt for the rest of his life the wave would have taken both K’s and The Seventh Man’s life.

Forgive, not because they deserve forgives, but because you deserve peace. It’s not easy to stop blaming someone’s fault, especially for someone who do wrong to us. In the book The Sunflower written by Simon Wiesenthal, a survivor of the Holocaust during World War II, he described his conflict with Karl, a dying Nazi soldier who killed many innocent Jews and begging for forgiveness for his outrageous crime at the end of his life. At the end of this sad and tragic episode, Simon did not response to Karl’s request directly; instead he left us a tough question: “What should you have done?” Based on what Karl had done during World War II and his repentance, each person might have their own point of view about where should we draw the line of forgiveness.

As Mila Bron said, “In order to heal we must first forgive…and sometimes the person we must forgive is ourselves.” In “The Seventh Man” by Haruki Murakami the narrator should forgive himself for his failure to save K. because he could have died himself and he was not wholly in control of his actions during the life-or-death situation. The narrator was not responsible for the wave that killed K. and he should not punish himself for something that was out of his control.

Life is a valuable thing, one only gets to live it once, therefore he needs to persevere strongly, and never dwell on the bad. In the book Tuesdays With Morrie, Morrie Schwartz is dealing with a

Death is something that occurs often in a war due to the violence and dangerous areas. Everyone takes on the thought of someone dying in different ways, whether they maintained a close relationship with the person or not guilt could become an instant reaction of the persons' death because of a feeling of maybe being responsible for the death that occurred. The thought of maybe being responsible for one of the soldiers that you have spent day night serving with could leave an enormous amount of guilt in one person. When witnessing a death or anything traumatic it is easy to blame someone else or even yourself for the tragic accident. Multiple characters in the book The Things They Carried demonstrated the guilt and responsibility of another

I feel that forgiveness is not for the other person, it’s a process that provides you the energy and the self-confidence to move on.

We are humans and a majority of us have dealt with heartache, pain, broken promises, along with the joyous things like dreams, aspirations, and successful futures. Humans mess up and make mistakes, but we have to remember that forgiveness is a very prestigious and powerful thing. Forgiveness affects people’s lives in positive ways through the hardships, difficulties, and struggles of life. There comes a time when forgiveness should not be available to some individuals. However, this depends on the past situations that have occurred in your life as well as other individuals. In The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls, was a girl who did not live the ordinary lifestyle. She had to overcome many occurrences with her family, from living a rough life

What makes one person want to harm another? One reason a person may want to harm another is to get revenge. In the book The Year We Disappeared by Cylin and John Busby, John wants desperately to get revenge on the person who shot him in the face while he was out on a night patrol. John finds himself desiring to inflict harm on John Meyer, the person he assumes shot him, yet he does not know if this is the right thing and considers forgiveness as an option. Since the start of mankind, humans have had to contemplate these three ideas when deciding between forgiveness and revenge: the reasons people forgive, the reasons people commit revenge, and how their choice will impact others.

When someone who wasn’t ready for what was coming and had a nice family is gone and you're left to tell the story to the loved ones it will bring you guilt as if it was your fault. In book “ Fallen angels” jenkins had died by stepping on a landmine. Someone tries to write a letter home for his family and takes the blame for it all when really it was

“...We often take responsibility in a way that goes beyond what we can reasonably be held responsible for”(Sherman 154), says Nancy Sherman in “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt.” Sherman believes that people blame themselves too much when something goes wrong in a dangerous situation; and even when something happens that is out of their control, they cannot forgive themselves for the outcome of the event. Should people in life-or-death situations be held accountable for their actions? Someone might argue that people should take responsibility for what they do, even in survival mode. However, in life-or-death situations, people should not accuse other, and make them feel remorse for their actions, because, in survival mode, a person wants to save themselves before anyone else.

Events that occur randomly and that are traumatic can take a toll on all aspects of an individual that endure them, what if an individual were in a gruesome situation and the lives of human beings were lost under their unintentional control? How would they feel for the rest of their lifetime? In the article “The Moral Logic of Survivor Guilt” by Nancy Sherman, she describes the emotional reality of soldiers in their home are often at odds with the civilian public, and are struggling to carry the burden of feeling responsible of traumatic situations. Survivor’s guilt is the bold feeling that survivors have after a tragic event taking place when others have passed away. Soldiers in battle experience losses during combat. They will have a subjective

The article by Karen Sternheimer provides some insight into the stats of murder in America. In doing so, the article also highlights some issues with the media today. We learn that the media turned a statistic in way to help themselves instead of properly providing the real statistic. What the media provided was based on a small number of people, but when looked at from a larger pool of people, it can be seen the opposite had occurred (the murder rate had decreased). We also learn that most murder victims are male, specifically, African American males. African American males has a six times greater chance than the general population and eight times greater chance than white males in becoming a murder victim.

Guilt is an emotion that comes from believing one was responsible for a particular mistake whether the assessment was accurate or not. (Powell)It can be described as “a bothered conscience” or “a feeling of culpability for offences”. One feels guilty when there is a feeling of responsibility for an action one regrets. (Barker, Guilt and Shame).A wrongdoer must deal with guilt by making atonement- by making reparation and penance.

has been almost three decades since the release of Ordinary people and it still remains one of the most well-written movies not only from an entertaining but also from a psychological perspective. Ordinary People is a 1980 American drama film that marked the directorial debut of actor Robert Redford. The movie won several Academy Awards for Best Director, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Picture and Best Supporting Actor (Timothy Hutton). The film has also attracted much critical acclaim. Ordinary People is the story of an upper middle-class family living in Illinois dealing with the loss of their oldest son, Buck. The movie is adapted from the novel of the same name by Judith Guest. It realistically depicts family dynamics, posttraumatic

Love has such a vast number of roles that it plays and everyone of them traces back to love. There is no one emotion, no one effect that love plays.The best way to show how love works is first to wonder what it can do. One aspect of love is forgiveness because it is generous, merciful and graceful.