Forgiveness is not always easy, but is the key to freedom from one’s past. Lucille Clifton, author of “forgiving my father,” was born in a small town outside of Buffalo, New York. Clifton has won copious amounts of awards for her writing including two Pulitzer Prize nominations, an Emmy, and two writing fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. In the poem “forgiving my father,” Clifton creates a speaker that is bound to forgive her father for his debts but is unable to dismiss the memories that her father left her with. “Forgetting” and “forgiving” are words that are often complimentary to one another. Forgetting is to willfully neglect a memory while forgetting is to grant pardon for or remission of a debt. How does someone forgive but not forget, especially one’s own father? The speaker is forced to forgive her father because she has to pardon his financial debts he has left behind but does not forget what he has done. …show more content…
The consequences of the father's actions are put onto his children while he is able to leave without any suffering. While the father was alive he spent his money on prostitutes and alcohol. Hence, once he died the children were left with the financial hole he had dug himself in. Clifton comments that when the speaker “[came] / to the paying of the bills” (1-2) there was no money to pay his debts. The speaker is unable to forget what her father has done because the weight is still on her shoulders. Moreover, while the speaker’s father was spending his time with prostitutes, his children grew a deeper and deeper loathe against him. Forgetting the misery that the children’s father selfishness caused may be impossible, but forgiveness is
The narrator faces an internal Man vs. Himself conflict in “A Secret Lost in the Water” when he realizes that he no longer remembers his father’s gift. “Somewhere along the roads I’d taken since the village of my childhood I had forgotten my father’s knowledge. ‘Don’t feel sorry… nowadays fathers can’t pass on anything to the next generation’” (Carrier, 96). This impacts the narrator because it gives him a sense of regret. Consequently, the statement made him feel like he, who is a father now himself, may not be able to pass down any of his knowledge to his kids. Although, this teaches him that it is important to hold onto certain knowledge passed down because it is the only way that it can be remembered and preserved.
Early America was a very racist country and some argue that it still is today. Racism has been an ongoing conflict in this country but it has gotten better in the last fifty or so years. African Americans are often times the target of racism and have had to persevere through slavery, segregation, and discrimination. During this discrimination and segregation, many African Americans embraced their talents and began what is known as the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance started in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. Many new artists, musicians, and writers emerged in this renaissance. Writers such as Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, and Colleen McElroy were especially important in this time. Langston Hughes, Lucille Clifton, and
Life as we all know is full of disappointment and filled with disparity. Most of us are able to go through these and learn from and forgive ourselves. Yet, this isn’t always the case. People are faced with traumatic experiences that often take a long time to get over, if they ever do get over it. These experiences brew in our brain popping up at the most random points often bringing our spirits down. Although these experiences may scar us and fill us with regret and guilt, we can’t continue to live in the past and let these regrets haunt us. Self forgiveness is a key to healing and to moving on in life, no matter how hard it is.
—Forgiveness is a suite of prosocial motivational changes that happened after a person has incurred a transgression (McCullogh). McCullogh also asserts the forgiveness process includes empathy for the transgressor, generous attributions and appraisals regarding the transgression and transgressor, and rumination abalout the transgression where agreeableness takes a serious place in the person who needs to forgive someone. Andre was impressed by his father’s work, the emotion developed in Andre’s mind have given up revenge and resentment thought to his father. When Andre’s father had an accident that made his legs crushed and had to sit on a wheelchair for the rest of his life; Andre immediately felt how vulnerable people are. He cherished the relationship with his father, in fact after the accident Andre started to cherish everyone besides him. The accident was a trigger to a prosocial motivational change to Andre and his father’s relationship. “But deliver us from evil. Amen” (Dubus, 387). Andre prayed on his father’s funeral. Forgiveness needs something to trigger; Andre understand pop’s condition and forgave him. Andre knew that his father has done the best he could, and he was happy and grateful that he had a father. Moreover, Andre’s life was full of sports, the healing process was impacted by
"Forgiving My Father", a poem written by Lucille Clifton, is about a relationship between a daughter and her father. Lucille Clifton is a female poet/author for several poems and children 's book. She was born in 1936 "in a small town near Buffalo, New York"; she attended Howard University, and she earned her teaching degree at Fredonia State Teacher 's College. She won numerous awards and recognitions, including an Emmy, for her works. She died in 2010 after a long battle with cancer. "Forgiving My Father" is part of the collection in her 1980 book Two-Headed Woman (Schilb and Clifford 270). In this poem, Clifton described a daughter 's memories of her father led her to become angry with him, sympathize with him, and eventually forgive him.
In “Out of the Dust,” a story told by 14-year-old Billie Jo, she describes her grief and feelings of lost hope including guilt from the accidental death of her mother and her mother’s unborn child. The accident crushed Billie Jo’s hope and her spirit, as well her father’s. It is a story of remarkable struggle where Billie Jo tries to find inner strength. She seeks the light through the Oklahoma “dust”. The “dust” is symbolic as it signifies a lack of life, dreams, and hope. Billie Jo takes the reader through her emotional of the journey that evokes compassion and empathy. The reader becomes part of the story and part of Billie Jo’s persona. Her journey embraces whom we are in the most profound sense of sadness and loss of her beloved mother. The story also guides us through the powerful enlightenment that defines the clearest explanation of the human spirit. In “Out of the Dust” Billie Jo demonstrates the power of forgiveness in herself and her father. These acts of forgiveness allowed her to move past the darkness and into the light. Her story gives the reader details on how the human spirit is philanthropic by nature and a lifelong process. “Out of the Dust” captures the essence of forgiveness including the transformations that occur during the process.
The Warmest December is a story of a young girl and her family as they move through an abusive past with an alcoholic man. Kenzie struggles through childhood only to find that she has started to become her father, Hy-Lo. She visits him daily and relives painful moments from her past at his bedside. The book is filled with difficult accounts of her physical and emotional abuse as she grows up. This paper will discuss the topics of recovery and forgiveness after a troubled past as it pertains to both The Warmest December and other books we have read, specifically Breath, Eyes, Memory by Edwidge Dandicat.
The essay "Forgiveness," written by June Callwood, explores the concept of forgiving and how it influences people's lives for the better. Her work describes many components of forgiveness, such as how difficult it can be to come to terms with, why it is such a crucial part of humanity, and how it affects all people. Her essay aims to prove that forgiveness is the key to living peacefully and explains specific examples of people who have encountered extremely difficult situations in their lives- all of whom found it within themselves to forgive. To clearly portray this message in her writing, Callwood uses several strategies. She includes fear inducing statistics, makes many references to famous events and leaders, and uses a serious convincing tone, all of which are very effective.
As humans, we are entitled to making mistakes in our lives, but by forgiving one free himself from anger. Marianne Williamson wrote this about forgiveness: “ Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.” In the book The Glass Castle undergoes many difficult circumstances in which the act of forgiveness is the only way to be at peace with her family, but more importantly herself. But the real question is does she truly forgive them. Jeanette’s ability to constantly forgive her parents enabled her to have a positive attitude because the negativity was released when
Guilt is a powerful force in humans. It can be the factor that alters someone's life. On the other hand, forgiveness can be just as powerful. In The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, her characters-the Price family-travel to Africa on a religious mission. Throughout the novel, the concept of guilt and forgiveness is reflected on multiple occasions. Each character has a different experience with guilt and how it affects them in the end. By structuring The Poisonwood Bible to include five different narrators, Kingsolver highlights the unique guilt and forgiveness to each individual experiences as well expresses the similarities that all humans face with these complex emotions.
I read The Secret Life of Bees about a girl named Lily who ran away from home with hopes of finding out more about her mother before she had accidently shot her. She only had an old picture she had found in her mom’s stuff of a black Virgin Mary with the name of a city on the back as a clue as where to go. When you finally finds where the picture comes from she stays at a nice woman’s house named August. One of the themes of the book is forgiveness, throughout the book Lily must learn to forgive herself for killing her mom, her mom for leaving her behind, and her dad for not always being there for her. Lily had to find the strength to forgive in order to move on from her past and not live in self-pity because of what she did and what others
A certain level of forgiveness is necessary for people who have not been familiarized with the rules which they are expected to live by, but Daisy Miller took this innocence to extremes.
“Forgive and forget” is a common phrase in our society. However, one may argue that mistakes are never truly forgotten. The Kite Runner suggests that the best way to resolve your past and make up for your mistakes is through doing good. Through Rahim Khan’s wisdom, the actions of Baba, and the journey of Amir, Khaled Hosseini illustrates that the need for redemption, due to unresolved guilt, can haunt someone throughout their life.
How would one feel and behave if every aspects of his or her life is controlled and never settled. The physical and emotional wrought of slavery has a great deal of lasting effect on peoples judgment, going to immense lengths to avoid enslavement. In the novel, Beloved, Toni Morrison uses the characters adversity to expose the real struggles of slavery and the impact it has on oneself and relationships. Vicariously living through the life of Sethe, a former slave who murdered one of her kids to be liberated from the awful life of slavery.
In the story, My Father’s Life, by Raymond Carver I learned Raymond Jr. shares many traits with his father. They both are alcoholics who can’t seem to settle anywhere they go. They both also share the name Raymond; Yet I don’t think Raymond Jr. likes it. Raymond Jr. also had a rocky relationship with his father. His father was always too involved with the struggles of life or too drunk to actually build a relationship with Raymond Jr. Despite all that is against him I believe Raymond Jr. wanted to connect with his father anyway he could.