Session 8: Forgiveness and Personal Violence

Session 8: Forgiveness and Personal Violence
Chair: Kathryn J. Norlock
‘Women can be surprisingly forgiving’: Coetzee’s Disgrace
Yael Maurer.
The Department of English and American Studies, Tel Aviv University, Tel- Aviv, Israel

David Lurie, the protagonist of Coetzee’s novel Disgrace, a white middle aged professor who becomes involved in an unlikely affair with his young student leading to public disgrace, is told by his daughter Lucy of women’s surprising forgiveness: This statement foreshadows Lucy’s act of seemingly forgiving her three black rapists and accepting their (unspoken) terms in order to remain on her farm. I suggest Coetzee highlights the sexual conflict as it interacts with racial dynamics:  He thus provides a different moral and artistic framework to the notion of personal and historical forgiveness.  Coetzee does so by employing inter-textuality as a vehicle for personal and political change. The possibility of ever achieving personal and political transformation, however, remains a vexed option in the novel.
Coetzee’s protagonist undergoes a transformation in the course of the narrative. But his trajectory is not, as some critics of the novels would have it, from a self-centered, morally lax sexual predator to a caring individual who finds an unlikely vocation in delivering dogs to their (unavoidable) end. Rather, by employing the Byronian inter-text, Coetzee manages to disrupt the very terms of his own narrative as a tale of redemption. David Lurie’s obsession with Byron leads him to consider writing an opera about his hero. But he ends up with a (largely faltering) attempt to re-create the story of Byron’s aging mistress, pining for her dead lover. Lurie overcomes his Byron- like aversion to middle-aged “dumpy women” and chooses the aging Theresa to be the heroine of his piece. This act leads to a revelation of the “strange” and “fascinating” ways in which Art works in a fallen world: The problematic attempt at artistic “healing” thus    remains the only form of grace which Coetzee allows his disgraced protagonist.

How do some individuals forgive that which was seemingly unforgivable? This is the main research question of this dissertation. Following Jacques Derrida’s philosophical argument that only forgiving the unforgivable constitutes genuine forgiveness, this study examines transformative forgiveness following traumatic events.
A new definition and a new conceptualization of transformative forgiveness as an exceptional human experience are presented. Transformative forgiveness is defined as a complex process of gradual transformation of consciousness, transpersonal in nature, developing in the interpersonal context, but primarily intrapsychic. The dynamics of transformative forgiveness are studied mainly at the individual intrapsychic level, in order to understand how it develops, and its transformative impact, along with its facilitators, inhibitors, accompaniments, and aftereffects. In a qualitative heuristic research design, data collection was accomplished through answering a questionnaire, a narrative session, followed by two in-depth interview sessions. A study of journals, published books, and other creative works add another data dimension. In the heuristic style then, the data is filtered through the internal search process of the primary researcher, who has experienced transformative forgiveness, as well.
In individuals profoundly affected by forgiveness, the inner transformation and its dynamics become even more apparent. Twelve participants were primarily selected through media research. A number of participants have survived homicide or suicide of close family members, and have succeeded not only in forgiving the perpetrator but in becoming advocates for social issues, such as peace, restorative justice, and youth non-violence. Thus, forgiveness took them from self-healing to others-healing, a process of expanding meaning and value. Participants come from different religious and ethnic backgrounds, answering thus a need in the field to explore forgiveness in all religions, and to determine the differential religious factors affecting forgiveness, if any.
Synthesizing the results, a complementary perspective seems to be emerging, that integrates psychological and theological approaches to forgiveness.

Download Draft Conference Paper –

Forgiveness is most successful when we know that there is a community supporting us, assuring us that we are not invisible, that we matter, that life has value and we can acknowledge our pain.  The responsibility to restore a sense of balance and fairness is shared by community, not just the individuals who have lost a family member to violence; this allows room both spiritually and psychologically for forgiveness.
Forgiveness is most difficult in isolation or with a community demanding vengeance.  What are the shields between the violence and the restitution?  Why do some communities restore health and safety and others do not?  What are the obstacles to forgiveness and what are the building blocks?
In this paper, we will discuss several communities where a violent crime has occurred and their reactions to that crime.  We will reference high school and college communities (Columbine and Platte Canyon High Schools in Colorado, Virginia Technical College) that have experienced sudden violent episodes resulting in at least one death and concluding with the gunman’s suicide.  We will also compare and contrast rural and urban communities’ response to violent crime (for example, the Amish community in rural Pennsylvania and gun violence in Chicago).
Each of these communities responded differently to violent crime.  Each has been faced with the difficult task of reconciliation and forgiveness.  We will discuss the variety of community responses and the impact on forgiveness.  We will look at what allowed for and supported forgiveness, and what did not, and the long term impact of having forgiven spiritually and psychologically.

Download Draft Conference Paper –