What Is The Moral Of Sunflower

Vince Lombardi, an American football player, and a coach, once said, “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.” With these words, Lombardi highlights that people are nurtured to become a leader and a follower. For instance, Lombardi asserts that a person is trained, whether to be a leader, or a follower, through eagerness and determination. The book, The Sunflower, written by Simon Wiesenthal, an author and a Jewish holocaust survivor, who focuses on one of the most controversial topics during and after World War II, forgiveness. In this book, Weisenthal talked about a questionable case in which Karl, an SS soldier who murdered plentiful of people, asked Weisenthal for forgiveness for all the pain he had done towards all the people that were affected by him. When it comes to the topic of whether people are born to become leaders or followers or is one trained by the environment, most people will readily agree that people are conditioned to become a leader or a follower, where this agreement usually ends, however, is on the question of, “What makes a person a leader?” Whereas some are convinced that people are natural born leaders. Becoming a leader consists with a few reasons such as developed leadership skills, the bystander apathy, and the diffusion of responsibility.

See?”(Golding 144). Simon, in shock of what the Lord of the Flies says to him, “knew that one of his times was coming on”(Golding 143). His emotional distress triggers his body to lose all consciousness.

In Simon Wiesenthal’s The Sunflower, he recounts his incidence of meeting a dying Nazi soldier who tells Simon that he was responsible for the death of his family. Upon telling Simon the details, Karl asks for his forgiveness for what he helped accomplish. Simon leaves Karl without giving him an answer. This paper will argue that, even though Karl admits to killing Simon’s family in the house, Simon is morally forbidden to forgive Karl because Karl does not seem to show genuine remorse for his committed crime and it is not up to Simon to be able to forgive Karl for his sins. This stand will be supported by the meaning of forgiveness, evidence from the memoir, quotes from the published responses to Simon’s moral question, and arguments from

The character of Simon in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies has often been viewed as the Christ figure of the novel. If you were to examine the actions of both Simon and Jesus, you would find a number of incidents that parallel each other.

To understand literature is to not only understand human nature, but to also understand how the surrounding conditions affect humans. It is often the situation that people are placed in which drives their actions. Similarly, the Marxist approach to studying literature focuses on how certain economic conditions can affect character’s values and actions. In addition, Marxism teaches that wealth is a critical part of society, as without it many opportunities are no longer present. For example, an individual with wealth can go through life leisurely, while a person without it is subject to greater hardships. In the play A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, the struggle due to economic conditions is evident, as the dreams and aspirations of the Younger family become deferred due to their struggles with poverty. The economic conditions of the Younger family not only lead to the deferral of their dreams, but also to the neglect of their moral values as they begin to see wealth as a necessity.

Alan L. Berger, a Professor of the Holocaust and Religion, expresses in The Sunflower that Simon even though being an imprisoned jew could not take the apology on the behalf others. He refers to Judaism that there are two types of sins; one against god and one against another human. Berger states about forgiveness that ‘I may forgive one who has sinned against me. I may

The soldier had asked the nurse to bring Simon to him because he felt the need to share his crimes with a Jewish person. He tells Simon, “I must tell you something dreadful… something inhuman”(Wiesenthal, 11). He shows remorse by calling his crime dreadful and inhuman, and all he wants is to tell Simon his story and be forgiven. The soldier is heavily wounded, and his face is covered in bandages. He tells Simon about how his own parents didn’t trust him as a child because he joined the Hitler youth. Even if his parents didn’t agree with what he was doing, they should always be able to trust their own son. When the war began, he volunteered for the SS, and the last words he heard his father say were that no good would come of it. He is truly a man deserving of pity in his final days.

His argument was that if this was true and Karl was not held responsible because he wanted forgiveness. Berger put shame on the Church, murderers and those who ask for forgiveness who could not forgive themselves. I agree with Berger because even though you are sorry and are guilty of do horrible crimes you must still pay for your sins. Also, even though Karl was a dying man and wanted forgiveness as a dying wish, you should not give him what he wants when it involves other groups of people.

Opponents argue that forgiving someone who has committed a crime would be one of the toughest things to do for a person. They believe it would be very difficult to forgive soldiers for what they had done because they people they killed were part of their friends and family. How can they forgive someone who was so beloved to them. In the book, "The Sunflower" Sven Alkalaj argues that we don't have the right to forgive a person on someone else's behalf. For example, Simon couldn't forgive Karl because he killed someone else’s family member. Karl did not have the right to forgive on behalf of those families. As a result, Simon left the room without saying any word to Karl because Simon knew that Karl committed crimes and also asking the wrong

The moral issues of the movie question the concepts of what we believe in to be right and wrong, sin and benevolence. In Karl's position did he even know what was right and what was wrong?

The Holocaust was a genocide that occurred from 1933-1945, and one of its survivors was Simon Wiesenthal. After he was set free from the concentration camp, he dedicated his life to finding Nazi war criminals and persecuting them in court. Later on in his life, he wrote a memoir, The Sunflower. It was about one of his many experiences at the Lemberg concentration camp where he got roped into listening to a dying SS soldier, Karl. Right before Wiesenthal left Karl’s room, Karl asked Wiesenthal, on behalf of all the Jews he persecuted, for forgiveness. Wiesenthal left Karl’s room without forgiving him, and then asked his readers, “What would I have done?” At the end of The Sunflower, people who Wiesenthal picked to respond to his question, had their answers published. The most interesting response was Jose Hobday’s. Hobday believed that Wiesenthal should have forgiven to Karl because it would have given Karl a sense of peace, making it easier for him to pass on. Hobday had the correct answer to Wiesenthal’s question because even though all of the Jews that Karl persecuted are dead and will not be able to forgive him in person, Karl just wanted someone to know that he was sorry for his actions.

Throughout the story, Simon gave a variety of advice that did not seem important at the moment, but turned out to be substantial as time went by. Simon

Edward H. Flannery states that The Sunflower presents “an important moral question” (Flannery 135). Flannery argues in favor of forgiveness. He states that Karl, the dying SS man, could had asked for forgiveness for what “he had done” (Flannery 137) not forgiveness on the behalf of others. Flannery states that

Simon is not the leading protagonist of the novel but he represents Jesus, who would

In William Golding's Lord of the Flies, Simon represents the innate morality of humans, acting as a Christ-like figure, while Roger embodies the all present cruelty and inherent sadism of individuals. Throughout the novel, Simon remains unchanged in terms of morality, as others slowly turn to savagery and hunting, as can be seen when Jack’s group become, “demoniac figures with faces of white and red and green.” Instead Simon finds a quiet spot “in a little cabin screened off from the open space by a few leaves.” By “holding his breath, he [cocks] a critical ear at the sounds of the island,” using his secret cabin to meditate. Coupled with his deep connection to nature, Simon is revealed to be a Christ figure. When left alone with the