of the theme itself by acting, as a form of therapy to
readers who might be in mourning themselves.
See also Chaucer, Geoffrey: canterbury
taLes, the; Faulkner, William: sound and the
Fury, the; Shelley, Percy Bysshe: poems.
FURTHER READING
Gilbert, Sandra. Death’s Door: Modern Dying and the
Ways We Grieve. New York: Norton, 2006.
Kamerman, Jack B. Death in the Midst of Life: Social and
Cultural Influences on Death, Grief, and Mourning.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1988.
Kirkby, Joan. “A Crescent Still Abides.” In Wider than
the Sky: Essays and Meditations on the Healing Power
of Emily Dickinson, edited by Cindy MacKenzie
and Barbara Dana, 129–141. Kent, Ohio: Kent
University Press, 2007.
Lewis, C. S. (as N. W. Clerk). A Grief Observed. Lon-
don: Faber, 1961.
Morrison, Toni. Sula. New York: Plume, 2002.
Simos, Bertha G. A Time to Grieve. New York: Family
Service Association of America, 1979.
Jennifer McClinton-Temple
guilt
When we hurt someone, we usually feel guilty. If
the hurt was committed deliberately, this is under-
standable. However, many of us can feel guilt even
when the hurt is inadvertent. Human beings are also
capable of feeling guilt merely for existing when
others have died, or for being born wealthy when
others live in poverty. Guilt, at its heart, reflects a
transgression, a crossing of boundaries. Societies
have rules, written and unwritten, and when we
break those rules, we often feel guilty unless and
until we can effect restitution or restore harmony.
Guilt is so fundamental to human existence that it
makes an appearance as early as the book of Genesis,
the first book of the Bible. God tells Adam and Eve
that they are free to do what they wish, as long as
they keep his only rule: that they will not eat from
the fruit of the tree in the middle of the Garden of
Eden. Yet they do, thanks to the serpent’s tempta-
tions, and they are banished from the garden forever.
Their lasting punishment, though, is that the “eyes
of them both were opened” (Gen. 3:7). Further,
they have generated what would come to be known
as original sin. The notion of original sin is that
because of Adam’s and Eve’s transgression, we are all
born as sinners, guilty from the start.
Adam and Eve had only one rule to follow, and
they broke it. For the rest of us, the rules we must
follow in life are legion, as well as far more dif-
ficult to know and discern at all times throughout
our lives. Because we cannot control when and if
we might be transgressing, guilt pervades human
existence. We can be under the thrall of collective
guilt, as is the society depicted in Günter Grass’s
The tin druM. Guilt over the Holocaust is so per-
vasive in Grass’s post–World War II Danzig that his
protagonist, Oskar, refuses to grow up and enter the
world of complicitous and duplicitous adults. We can
also be following the “rules” of our society and still
find ourselves feeling guilty. For instance, soldiers
who kill in battle have, on the surface, done nothing
for which to feel guilty; they are merely doing their
jobs, following their orders. However, many of them
can and do feel guilty about the killing they do, as
exemplified by Paul Berlin in Tim O’Brien’s GoinG
aFter cacciato. Berlin is following the rules, and
yet he feels guilty; Cacciato has broken the rules
by going AWOL, and yet he is depicted as happy
and free. We may also, like Dunstan Ramsey in
Robertson Davies’s FiFth business, feel guilty
about events that we were involved in but were not
our fault. Dunny feels guilt his whole life for duck-
ing the snowball that hit Mrs. Dempster. That he is
never able to fully make restitution to her is most
likely a result of it not having been his fault in the
first place.
That guilt is a complicated concept, often felt
irrationally, is clear. That it pervades Western culture
is no less so. As recounted above, the concept of
original sin makes us all “born guilty.” Christianity
certainly bears a good deal of responsibility for
making guilt so important in our lives. The German
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche argues that guilt
has its origins in a creditor and debtor concept of
human relationships. He argues that it is in these
types of relationships that we break the rules for
which we must make restitution. He further argues
that Christianity is based on such a relationship,
with Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross serving to
put all humanity in “debt.” If Nietzsche is correct,guilt 45