Journal 8

Allison Rood
Topics In Literature
7/1/2010

One of the many themes of the book that we have discussed in class is shame, which in this case might very well be misplaced. Lily personally takes responsibility for her mother’s death. What is brought into question is if it really was her fault. T. Ray pulls Lily aside to verify the details of her mother’s death before her first day of school when she started first grade and is furious that she remembers little bits and pieces of the day until she doesn’t remember where the shot came from and who fired it. Only then is he okay to continue from where she left off saying that it was Lily’s fault for grabbing the gun from the floor and she accidentally shot her mother.

What makes me question this finding is that the gun was on the floor in the first place. Lily even said that her mother had grabbed the gun from the top shelf, and then that T. Ray had grabbed it from her mother, and when two people are fighting, it isn’t probably that a loaded gun would ever be left on the floor instead of being pointed at an opponent. I concluded that in fact Lily has nothing to feel shameful for because T. Ray fired the gun and dropped it, when from there she picked it up, after the damage had been done. To keep T. Ray safe from prosecution, he allowed for his daughter to feel the shame of murder, and continued his life as an innocent civilian. This is similar to Simon Wiesenthal’s nightmares and personal guilt related to the murder of the Jews that was described to him by the dying Nazi soldier. He carried some of the grief of the terrible actions after being relayed the details of the crime, almost holding onto some of the guilt as some of his own. The soldier was able to die knowing he had at least shared his story, and perhaps cleared his conscience a little bit, much like T. Ray was able to continue living his life after clearing himself of blame for his wife’s murder. In both cases, shame is placed on an innocent bystander who is given more responsibility than should have been held at the time. However, in Lily’s case, it was clearly with a more malicious intent.