Vengeance And Forgiveness, By Martha Minow

Eric Bartels analyzes the difficulties of modern-day marriage in his article, “My Problem with Her Anger,” by examining his own marital experiences. By optimistic confrontation and resolution of his family’s problems, Bartels believes that not only will he save his marriage, but he will also be rewarded for his sacrifices (63). The author claims he realized the separation between men and women during his late night chores (57).

Forgiveness is the theme of the Glass Castle because although Jeannette Walls was neglected, betrayed, and even belittled by her parents she doesn’t hold any negative feelings towards them. She exemplifies the theme of forgiveness by never blaming her parents for neglecting them, when her mother and father both squander her money on themselves, or when her parents allowed Erma to treat them as horribly as she did. Jeannette knows who her parents are, accepts and forgives, to the point that she can have a Thanksgiving dinner with Lori, Brian, and Mom reminiscing about the days of past.

The Sunflower is a memoir of Simon Wiesenthal’s experience in a Polish concentration camp and his internal conflict of whether he did the right thing by remaining silent when a dying SS man asked him for forgiveness. Wiesenthal wrestles with this choice and at the end of his memoir, he extends the question “What would you do?” to the readers. Drawing my own opinion from a number of people including “theologians, writers, human rights activists, Holocaust survivors, political leaders, and victims of attempted genocide in Bosnia, Cambodia, China, and Tibet” whom have responded to this question. I personally would have been just as conflicted as Wiesenthal was, but ultimately I would have chosen to forgive him.

John Green once said, “The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive” (Green). Louis (Louie) Zamperini, a World War II hero, knows this to be true better than anyone else. In the novel Unbroken written by Laura Hillenbrand, Zamperini is a mischievous runner in the 1936 Olympics who is later drafted into the United States Air Corps. On a mission, his plane crashes, leaving him and two other crewman stranded on a raft. After 47 days, Zamperini and Russell Allen Phillips (referred to as Phil) are captured by Japanese officials and shipped to camps where they became prisoners of war. As readers follow Zamperini’s story through Unbroken, Louie shows how he overcame his suffering as a POW, which allows

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.

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.

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.

“A Crime of Compassion” by Barbara Huttmann she talks about how she was working as a nurse in a hospital when she became very close to this patient and his wife. He had lung cancer and was dying a slow and painful death. Huttmann describes all the pain he felt, his wife felt, and how he begged the hospital staff to let him die only for them to ignore his pleas. She discusses how awful she, the patient and his wife felt every time they revived him and forced him to live a painful life he didn’t want to live. At the end of her story, Huttmann reviles how she purposely waited to call the code knowing that they would not be able to revive him again. Huttmann’s technique was to use illustration to convince her readers of the need for new legislation

The shared themes of "The Interlopers" and "To Forgive is Divine" is holding a grudge can hurt more than it helps, and forgiveness can allow wounds to heal and hatred to disappear. In the article "To Forgive is Divine," the author believes that "forgiveness frees you-it frees you to live without the weight of that anger and resentment." The story "The Interlopers" Ulrich and Georg "...each prayed that misfortune might fall on the other" their hatred towards each other lead to each others death. This shows that holding a grudge can keep you from moving on with your life and hurt you in the end, but if you forgive you can move on and be

About 20,000 people are murdered each year. Not many murders are forgiven. The murders forgiven are forgiven by people with mercy. One particular example of forgiveness would be Mary Johnson’s story. Mrs.Johnson forgave her son’s killer and became close friends with him. Mrs. Johnson’s story of mercy teaches about the need for mercy by showing that killers can change, forgiveness can help people, and that people who are bad need second chances.

Barbara Huttman’s “A Crime of Compassion” is an excerpt from her book about her true stories as a nurse. In this excerpt, she is stating what happened when she was on the Phil Donahue show. When she was on the show, she was talking about how she had let a patient go, and someone shouted from the audience. That person shouted “Murderer” and she wrote this saying what had happened during the patient's lifetime and why she let him go, The person in the crowd who shouted; I don’t agree with him. Barbara Huttman is not a murderer.

The journal article, Third-Party Forgiveness: (Not) Forgiving Your Close Other’s Betrayer, examines the forgiveness process of third parties in a personal relationship context. While examining the question of why a third party might be less forgiving than the victims themselves? The researchers generated the primary hypothesis of “that close friends of victims (third parties) are less forgiving than the victims themselves (first parties). In order to test the stated hypothesis the researchers designed two separate experiments. Experiment 1, an imagery scenario was created which a romantic partner or the romantic’s partner created the identical relationship offense. Experiment 2, both the first and third parties described an actual offense

An apology is only a compile of words, it’s the actions that define the sincerity. It has often been told that an apology is necessary once a sin has been committed but an apology is only the following consequences from a caught failure. It is forced upon punishment and it is a scheme made to cover up the lack of guilt or regret. Apologies are also seen as forgiveness however it only satisfies society’s regulations. Apologies ‘fix’ the order in humanity but the broken can not always be repaired, especially when the transgressor is lying through a mask. If an apology is only satisfying society's needs then an apology is not necessary to begin with.

State-Trait Depression Inventory (STDI) was used to measure depression (Spielberger, 2003). A 20-item questionnaire was administered that corresponds to the depression subscale of State-Trait Personality Inventory (STPI). It employed a four-point Likert scale with 1 meaning “almost always” and 4 meaning “almost never”. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the scale in the present study is 0.93.

Though forgiveness and clemency matter significantly in social life, they play comparatively small roles in criminal justice system. The criminal procedure is dominated by the State whose interests in deterring, debilitating and imposing retribution leave little room for forgiveness. However, justice need not be so austere, intangible and uncongenial. A more modified, concrete criminal justice system could give much better credence to the benefit and needs of the offenders, victims and members of the society. An offender usually inflicts both physical and psychological injuries upon a victim. This kind of an action on the part of the offender, justifies the victim’s resentment of the offender. The resentment protests the injustice of the wrong, the victim’s self-worth, and the wrong-doer’s abuse of his moral agency. Having been victimized, many victims are justifiably annoyed, terrified, regretful or even grief stricken. As expected, people assume that victims therefore want revenge and call for blood and certainly sometimes they do. On the other hand, there are some victims who demand justice but are even open to mercy as well. Many of them want to deal with offenders in person and understand why their crimes happened. Ideally, many would like to receive apologies as well. So much so, forgiveness of such harms inflicted upon the victim or victim’s family must ordinarily come from them rather than any outsider mourning for such loss. It is usually the offenders who may put