Spilled salt – sprogrettelser The worst thing a parent can experience is when your own child commits a crime. Should parents forgive their own flesh and blood no matter what, and if so, what is unforgiveable? In what way can religion help the parent to forgive such a crime as rape or is it even possible? These dilemmas are mentioned in the short story “Spilled Salt”, written by Barbara Neely, published in 1990. Kenny is the son of Myrna. He is a former prisoner, because of rape of a girl named Crystal Roberts. Kenny only confessed the crime after the police found evidence for the incident, which shows his lack of honesty and therefore a problem for some to trust him. His childhood was tough, in that he grew up in a poor neighbourhood …show more content…
One way to bury her guilt is by working; “You wait in people in the restaurant all day and sit up all night making other people’s clothes” (p.5, l.140). The role of religion plays a big role in the text. Since Myrna’s sons imprisonment she has been a Christian in the hope, that religion can help her forgive Kenny. By going to church she is being confirmed that Kenny’s actions aren’t her fault but it’s God will, and therefore God must have had a reason for letting Kenny commit rape; “This was god’s plan for him” (p.6, l.168). Her religion has been her way to ignore all her guilty thoughts of Kenny’s crime; “Prayer and good works became a protective shield separating her from her past” (p.5, l.17). The name Myrna means “high spirited”, which makes sense because of her high religious way of thinking. The crucifix is a symbol of Myrna’s religion, which she leaves at home when she decides to run away from Kenny and her problems. In that moment she has therefore realized that religion could not save Kenny. The reason for her to think that Kenny hasn’t changed depends on one specific action he makes in the kitchen; “He’d spilled the salt, and there were crumbs on the floor” (p.2, l.87). There is an old saying, that to spill salt means you will have bad luck in the future. The title “Spilled Salt” is, because of this saying, very symbolic. Myrna is one of those superstitious people who believe this saying. That is why fear runs through her body, when Kenny spills salt
When dealing with glass objects such as a glass beaker or thermometer, be sure to hold the item. In instances where glass is broken during the experiment, do not clean up the area yourself! Notify your instructor immediately.
Throughout the next few pages her views on Christianity continue to change, as she goes back and forth from having faith in Christ to revisiting her drug and sex crazed life. The meeting of a new preacher and visiting the Church from time to time guides her the way back to God. Towards the last few pages of the writing Lamott is visited by Jesus after illness following a recent abortion, evaporating all of her disbeliefs, fears and enabling her to gradually dispose of the things she felt was immoral in her life, ending with a solid and blessed foundation of trust and faith. Anne Lamott clearly expresses the highs and lows of her Christian walk, enabling the audience to grasp the variety of influences and furthermore illustrating that her spirituality is actually the tie that binds them all together.
As human beings we are often reluctant to let go of our anger and unwilling to forgive others. This becomes especially true in the case of loved ones or family members. The poem, “How Do We Forgive Our Fathers?,” written by Dick Lourie, addresses the different dilemmas associated with a child forgiving his/her father. In his six-stanza poem, the poet discusses how a child should forgive their father for traumatic events imposed on the child. This includes reasons for forgiveness, appropriate time to forgive, and whether or not to even forgive at all. Detailed through the different stanzas, the poem suggests that until one learns how to appropriately forgive another for wrongful behavior, they will never be able to let go of resentment and
Even with the nightmares happening around her, Rowlandson is able to avoid the horrific fates others undergo by staying focused on her religion and God’s work. She describes an encounter with a fellow captive, saying that one poor woman “came to a sad end, as some of the company told me in my travel: She having much grief upon her Spirit, about her miserable condition, being so near her time, she would be often asking the Indians to let her go home” (77). Ultimately, the Indians, being annoyed by her constant begging and pleas, decide to burn both this woman and her small child alive. However, unlike that unlucky woman, Rowlandson survives because, instead of pleading to her captors, she takes her pleas to God and turns toward her religion, which keeps her mind healthy and positive throughout her tribulations. She is mentally tough due to her focus on positive religious messages, making her able to handle her situation well and ultimately leading to her survival.
She places a feeling of guilt on her audience, but calls them to action. She said, “Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night … spinning and weaving cotton and wool silks and ribbons for us to buy” (ln 18-22). She faults herself and her audience for sitting idly by while children are working in the middle of the night in harsh conditions. Furthermore, she continues to guilt the audience by stating that all the work these children are doing are for products that the audience will buy. In lines 59-61, Kelley attacks a bill that was removed that protected fourteen year old girls from working all night. This condemns her opposition as shameful. Kelley tries to unite her female audience against the “great evil” (ln 64-65) that is child labor. She believes that the suffrage of women will free children from the cruel nature of their working conditions.
Kenny is oblivious to his impact on the other two's self-esteem. He is covering up his own flaws by constantly pointing out his friends'. He lies to himself and decides it's acceptable to cause other people misery if the end result is no one sees his own problems.
Edelman opens her essay by recalling the countless hours early in her marriage in which her husband spent working (50). With his hours increasing, she unwillingly cut back on her own work hours to care for their child. Edelman then spends time sharing her disillusionment with the newfound reality of her
In order to pick up the slack of the other parent, both authors make sacrifices to ensure their children’s needs are met. Edelman feels like she was expected to reduce her work hours instead of her husband because of the gender roles forced upon parents in society today. Edelman became angry with the fact that she felt pressured to prioritize her husband’s career and give up her own career to care for their child. Edelman states “...there was something vaguely unsettling about feeling that my choice hadn’t been much of an actual choice”(51). Edelman also angrily states that the reason she was forced to give up her career was because “...he was ‘the husband’ and…his career took precedence...”(54). Edelman is angry at the fact that society made her believe her career was inferior to her husband’s. Bartels also makes sacrifices for his family. Bartels makes the sacrifices to take pressure off of his wife, who is constantly running their children around to daycare and
In the book Rediscovering the Power of Repentance and Forgiveness, Dr. Leah Coulter seeks to challenge the conventional Christian approach to forgiveness. Conventional Christianity approaches forgiveness as a Christian duty, and, in many ways, this has been unfair to the victims who have almost been condemned for seeking justice rather than simply forgetting. She asks, "From an all too common Christian view, why must the weight and responsibility of forgiveness be placed on the sinned-against instead of the sinner's repentance?" (Coulter). Therefore, she focuses extensively on the idea of repentance and the duty of the sinner to repent. However, that is not to suggest that Coulter abandons the idea that forgiveness is a Christian imperative, but she attempts to place it within its Jewish context, and demonstrate how other facets of historical Judaism inform the practice of forgiveness and repentance.
Forgiveness can be a simple gesture. Either way it’s a difficult task to complete. Nevertheless it’s easier to pry forgiveness from certain groups of people; especially children. Children tend to easily forgive since they do not fully comprehend the severity of a situation. This theory especially applies to the parent-child relationship where the child feels the need to forgive their parents no matter the situation. Forgiveness for the parent seems mandatory to the child considering the parent is the teacher of life to their child; what the parents say and/or do is all their knowledge of how the world goes. In The Glass Castle Jeannette Walls proves this theory correct. Numerous times Jeannette forgives her parents for their wrongdoings and
She aspires to be a perfect copy of her father, someone she has looked up to since she was little. It’s easy to see his influence on her through her narration and thoughts. Everything he says, she soaks in, like a sponge willing to accept an unlimited amount of water. When she says of Brother Fowles that “I heard them saying he was a New York Irish, which tells you a lot, as they are notorious for being papist Catholics” (38), her father’s effect on not only her personality but views towards people is evident. Because of his impact on her youth, she looks up to him with fierce intensity, even desiring “his wholehearted approval” (42). Underneath this adoration for her father, however, lies a distinct fear of disapproval, having never “contradicted [her] father on any subject, ever” (66). Here, it is apparent his authoritative influence on her, resulting in a deep-seated anxiety that Leah feels. Furthermore, with Leah’s initial love of her father, it is easier to see the contrast of what she feels towards her father as the book progresses, something that changes directly as a result of her time in the Congo. Her views towards religion are also an aspect that can demonstrate how she has been inclined to feel specific ways. Leah’s most important value in her religion is the sense of justice, something she believes that Christianity is about with every particle on her body. She considers “God’s scale to be vast
“Salt, A World History,” is an extensive aspect of world history by Earth’s one edible rock - salt. The book begins at the start of recorded history, and highlights humanity’s dependence on salt, up to roughly present day times. It focuses on the effect salt had on, and its contributions to, humankind. The book details how salt affected, economics, religion, science, and culinary practices all over the world.
She is so naïve and adolescent that she leaves her worldly activities and gets ready to go out and spend time with her boyfriend. She gives him her possessions: her “labor” and “leisure” too (l. 7) for his politeness.
The feeling of pride swelling up within her is because of that fact that her father acts as her primary role model for. In the society she lives in, girls often associate themselves with their mothers and take after them but such is not the case for the protagonist. She spends the vast majority of her time outside helping out her father with whatever work she is capable of doing. Her mother expresses her disgust for the work that her husband does as the protagonist states that her mother “[dislikes] the whole pelting operation”(100). This dislike can be attributed to the stereotype that women in this society are typically thought to have, as they do not associate themselves with such grueling and filthy work. While the mother finds the work to be off-putting the girl expresses polar opinions as she finds the smell of decaying fox carccases to be “reassuringly seasonal” (100). Her association with the smell paralleling the season of autumn emphasizes her innocence and naivete as she cannot differentiate between what society deems conventional and what is customary to her. Due to most of her time being spent outside and around men, her idiosyncratic behaviour is further reinforced. This initiates a positive feedback for the protagonist as the more she involves herself with her father and his work, the more that she yearns to be like her father. She envisions herself to be like him in the future, which would mean that she
For Joanna, religion was a source of comfort that was pushed on her by her father. Joanna was raised by puritans and she lives her life with a constant subconscious fear of