Big Harold Summary

The story of Big Harold is one of trust, acceptance, respect and grace. This chapter displays a relationship between two individuals with a difference of beliefs and morals. Big Harold can be characterized as a traditionalist, he sees his morals as valid while others are wrong. The young boy can be characterized as mutual respect. He knows his beliefs and morals and the difference that Harold holds to, yet he continues to develop a relationship built on acceptance and grace. Trust was built at a young age between the writer and Big Harold. Harold brought the family into his home and cared for the two children as his own. Once the relationship developed, the children could begin to better understand the behavior of Harold. Some of the key …show more content…
Yet, he was too focused that his own personal life was falling apart. His son was admitted to a rehabilitation center and Harold had a hidden addiction that sent him to prison. After he was released Harold continued to preach about morality as if he never went to prison. One issue about Harold was his focus on morality and making the rest of the world see through this same idea as he did. However, a key issue in this story wasn’t the importance of morality and how everyone should live morally correct to Harold’s, grace was the issue that had been missing. Our goal should be to become more than we are, for Harold he needed to be more understanding and accepting. Harold became so certain that his way of morality was the proper way, and he was too blinded to the possibilities of doing things differently that might be beneficial to himself. Harold could never accept people of color because his morals went against the belief of equality, he could never have musical instruments because he took a few scriptures too literally, and he could never accept feminism and gay rights. Harold was culturally blind, he was unable to understand and accept …show more content…
Harold’s best advice would be to have this broader view of the world and even though there is a lot of wrong in the world. Harold needed to be more understanding, he needed to see the reasoning why America and Africa were changing. Harold needed to grasp the meaning of the changes that were occurring around him, since he was unable to it caused misunderstanding, confusion, and it could lead to conflict in relationships. He also needed to have an accepting attitude, the moment he saw that something was against his own personal morality he was unaccepting. He didn’t accept the church where women could wear makeup and they didn’t chew gum or talk during a sermon. If that were to happen, he would leave and find another church that wouldn’t go against his moral code. In class we have discussed the importance of boundaries, and I think that Harold had none. He had never built any boundaries, therefore, it was difficult for him to accept the changes that were happening in America and South Africa. Boundaries are important in any relationship because it keeps us a way to share things when but also to protect ourselves when needed. This could have been effective in Harold, instead of building walls that were difficult to break down, he needed boundaries where he would have been able to understand and accept some of the changes that were