Journal- Thursday

Jodi Finchum

Professor McLaughlin

Journal Entry- Thursday

July 1, 2010

            Focusing on just the idea of having to forgive your father because he killed your mother is an idea I would not even want to have to analyze. I think that situation may be one of the worst a young girl could be in, and it leaves lots of room for hate towards your father. Relating this story to The Sunflower, It gives me the question of “Can one horrible event be worse than another horrible event, when dealing with forgiveness?” I’m raising the question to myself about the pain and compassion the holocaust victims and survivors felt for each other, and the pain and hurt that the young girl in the Secret Life of Bees feels for her mother’s death, and the hate towards her father now.

            The fact that T. Ray will not even speak of her mother is disheartening and odd. It brings me to the question of just how bad T. Ray is. I wonder how she handles and copes with the abuse and neglect felt from her father. She must have some serious complexes developing from abandonment issues. She was abandoned by her mother by death, and now abandoned by her father for the rest of her life, because he has neglect issues towards her, emotionally and physically. She was showing the major signs of longing for love, when she finds the white gloves in the attic from her mother, and stuffed them, to hold them at night. All of her thoughts and actions seem linked to missing and longing for her mother, because she does not have that absolute parental figure in her life. I find it hard to think of how she can forgive T. Ray for this, but she seems to be making the best of her life now, if that is what forgiveness looks like.

            Also, the praying the God about “doing something” to T. Ray is very significant. The fact that at such a young age, she knows that she can turn to God for some sort of relief from her father is astounding. Her maturity is shown through her wit and her mature faith. Lily has relief from her father in her books, which adds onto her neglect for a parent. She is filling up her time with reading, and this is her outlet. I think that there is a possibility that the books are a way for her forgiveness. The writing and her success could give her a sense of forgiveness for her neglect while growing up. She could develop a sort of “ I told you I’m smart” attitude, and release that she is better than anything T. Ray ever was, and finds forgiveness in this.