Forgiveness And Restorative Justice

Forgiveness and restorative justice are healing tools for victims and offenders. The benefits of forgiveness can help heal a broken heart of a victim, secondary victim, or offender. Forgiveness and restorative justice relieves a victim of malice, rage, vengeance, revenge, bitterness and regret. It is very difficult to forgive someone for a crime, violation, or misdeed they have done to you or a loved one. Forgiveness is not mandatory in order to get restorative justice. Forgiveness does not excuse the offender from the harm they have done but benefits the people involved to move on with their lives. In the books “Disgrace” by J.M. Coetzee and “The Sunflower” by Simon Wiesenthal forgiveness and restorative justice is imperative for the characters.

Lucy was attacked by three men and raped. He tries to seek restorative justice for Lucy but to no avail David cannot convince Lucy to press charges on the offenders for the attack. David and Lucy are very much alike, both stubborn and set in their ways. David refused to apologize or seek forgiveness for his inappropriate behavior at the University. Lucy refuses to press charges for the rape because she is determined to have this situation just go away without further damage to herself. Lucy is a strong person because most people would find it hard to forgive or move on from an assault without getting some sort of revenge. Coetzee states, “Lucy, Lucy, I plead with you! You want to make up for the wrongs of the past, but this is not the way to do it. If you fail to stand up for yourself at this moment, you will never be able to hold your head up again.” (133). David cannot comprehend how Lucy is able to continue to live on the farm where she has been assaulted and continue to see one of the attackers regularly without feeling rage or anger for letting them get away with the attack. David is enraged to get punishment for the assault that happened to him and Lucy. Unfortunately, David does not get the restorative justice he wants which is imprisonment for the attackers. It is implied that Lucy chooses to forgive the attackers and try to live a decent life with her unborn child being able to have a

Karl is a soldier that killed numerous Jewish people. Karl confesses his murderous activities to Simon and asks to be forgiven. Rightfully so, Simon does not give Karl his forgiveness at this time but seems to regret it later on. Once again forgiveness at this magnitude would only benefit Karl not Simon. Karl is the one suffering from guilt for his horrendous acts. Unluckily, Simon is the one chosen to hear Karl’s confession because he is the first Jewish person seen by the nurse. Forgiveness is not given but Simon ponders for months whether that was the right thing to do at the time. Wiesenthal states, “Today, I sometimes think of the young SS man. Everytime I enter a hospital, everytime I see a nurse, or a man with his head bandaged, I recall him” (95). In this case Simon is some what a second victim because he is a Jewish person and Jewish people were slaughtered by Karl. However; it is unfair for Simon to forgive Karl for all the wrongs he has done to innocent people. Simon is limited to how he can give Karl forgiveness because he is not the person Karl has hurt personally. Without a doubt Simon does feel sorrow for Karl because he is now a dying soldier that is expressing remorse for what he has done in the past. Karl wants to be at peace with himself before he dies because at some point in his life he was