Comparing The Relationship In Jenna Jordison's Making Peace With Myself

“Primary words do not signify things, but they intimate relations” (Buber, I and Thou, 19). In other words, if something is talked about in such a manner, then an intimate relation is brought into existence. There are two primary words. The first is I-Thou. The other primary word is I-It. “I-Thou can only be spoken with the whole being. I-It can never be spoken with the whole being” Buber, I and Thou, 19 & 20). The I-Thou relation is very complex. In the I-Thou, the thou could be referred to as “you”, while treating another person as a relation. Being open to equality of exchange, making a connection that included a dialogue. This relation could also be seen as a universal relation something that is somewhat abstract to see. I-Thou is a window, …show more content…
In Jenna Jordison’s story, Making Peace with Myself, she realizes that the person who murdered her father is also just a person. Jenna and the Victor, the person who killed her father, sent letters back and forth to each other. Jenna experienced the I-Thou with Victor “When I look into Victor’s eyes I see his deepest wish is to be free of July 23, 1982” (Moon, Not Turning Away, p. 51). Even though Victor had done something so awful, Jenna was able to forgive him and even make a connection and relation to him. In the story, There Was a Gun in The House, parents got a call one day that their son, Kenzo was shot to death by accident by his friend. The parents who had lost everything, their little sunshine, was gone. But the parents were not going to let the I-It win. “I felt I had to tell the boy that we knew he didn’t do it on purpose” (Moon, Not Turning Away, p. 125). This is another example of someone going through another tragedy, but realizing that the child did not know what he was doing. These two stories consist of people that care and can empathize with others. None of us really know what other people are going through. Everyone is human and we are all equally human. Committing a crime does not make us any less of a human. Constantly abiding by the I-It is no way to go through life. We all need to experience the I-Thou where the whole being can be seen, where people are not just another statistic, but much more than that. If people made the I-Thou connection with others, the world would be entirely different. Perhaps, violence would be extremely reduced and the sense of competition between people would be nonexistent. But because we live in a world where people and beings are seen as objects, the thought of a connection and a relation rarely comes across. It is