June Callwood, was social activist and journalist from Chatham Ontario, during her lifetime she wrote many different pieces, on a wide array of topics. At a young age she became one of Canadas most famous social justice activists. Her 2002 essay “Forgiveness”, talks about how forgiving is an essential aspect to living peacefully. This critique aims to break down the essays strengths and weaknesses and what could be improved upon. In this text, Callwood brings up multiple examples of when a person is given the chance to forgive someone else for their wrongdoing. These examples fail to include mild cases of offenses on another. But instead use extreme cases such as a child failing to forgive their parents for beating them in their youth, and
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Some examples prove to be effective in making the reader think, but they become irrelevant as the essay goes on. At first glace, this essay appears to get its point across and in ways it is touching as it deals with a sensitive topic, but on breaking it down it becomes clear that this essay, though makes a solid effort, fails to fulfill its purpose. Callwood starts off incredibly, grabbing the reader by the hand and guiding them along, catching their attention from the first sentence. “A small boy in an industrial city in Ontario was beaten severely many times by his father.” It generates an immediate sense of interest and leaves the reader wanting more. After such an incredible intro, the essay dives into the topic of religion, psychology and even a Jewish boy and an SS officer. It’s almost as if there are multiple ideas being portrayed at once rather than being expressed in an organized manner. Callwood describes multiple scenarios where a person could be faced with the option to forgive someone, allowing, the …show more content…
The idea of forgiving someone just because of their past as she states isn’t always the best way to go about doing things, doing so is almost like holding them non-accountable. Giving some form of forgiveness because of a person’s past does in the end though prove that the victim is morally a better person, and reduces the offender to a “hive of neuroses and ungovernable aberrations”. It’s hard to argue the fact that forgiveness is at times an essential part of life, but to say that it is necessary always is unfair. To improve on this essay, Callwood could have given more examples of people who failed to forgive their offenders, and explained why they had chosen to not forgive. In doing so, she would reach out to more readers and it would enable those who may have chose to not forgive someone to make a connection to the essay and be more interested in the piece. Callwood has many different ideas, but as stated before it seems as if some of them are just unrelated to the overall topic of forgiveness, given the opportunity she could improve by making this into multiple articles rather than an essay piece, this would have a greater impact on readers and would give a clearer image of what she was trying to prove. While reading an essay that is trying to prove something, or that is supporting an idea, the reader shouldn’t feel as if they must generate their own idea of what point the author is trying to make, and in this essay,
Some examples prove to be effective in making the reader think, but they become irrelevant as the essay goes on. At first glace, this essay appears to get its point across and in ways it is touching as it deals with a sensitive topic, but on breaking it down it becomes clear that this essay, though makes a solid effort, fails to fulfill its purpose. Callwood starts off incredibly, grabbing the reader by the hand and guiding them along, catching their attention from the first sentence. “A small boy in an industrial city in Ontario was beaten severely many times by his father.” It generates an immediate sense of interest and leaves the reader wanting more. After such an incredible intro, the essay dives into the topic of religion, psychology and even a Jewish boy and an SS officer. It’s almost as if there are multiple ideas being portrayed at once rather than being expressed in an organized manner. Callwood describes multiple scenarios where a person could be faced with the option to forgive someone, allowing, the …show more content…
The idea of forgiving someone just because of their past as she states isn’t always the best way to go about doing things, doing so is almost like holding them non-accountable. Giving some form of forgiveness because of a person’s past does in the end though prove that the victim is morally a better person, and reduces the offender to a “hive of neuroses and ungovernable aberrations”. It’s hard to argue the fact that forgiveness is at times an essential part of life, but to say that it is necessary always is unfair. To improve on this essay, Callwood could have given more examples of people who failed to forgive their offenders, and explained why they had chosen to not forgive. In doing so, she would reach out to more readers and it would enable those who may have chose to not forgive someone to make a connection to the essay and be more interested in the piece. Callwood has many different ideas, but as stated before it seems as if some of them are just unrelated to the overall topic of forgiveness, given the opportunity she could improve by making this into multiple articles rather than an essay piece, this would have a greater impact on readers and would give a clearer image of what she was trying to prove. While reading an essay that is trying to prove something, or that is supporting an idea, the reader shouldn’t feel as if they must generate their own idea of what point the author is trying to make, and in this essay,