Receiving the forgiveness of someone who has been wronged is a difficult thing to do because it takes an understanding of one another for it to be achieved. The act of giving forgiveness and gaining it requires an effort from both sides to be made in order for the emotional healing process to begin. The concept of forgiveness is shown in many areas throughout the book, Touching Spirit Bear. There are a couple different instances in the story where one of the characters, recognizes how they’ve impacted another character, whether it be they were affected physically or emotionally. Some characters in the book tried fixing their problems and gaining that forgiveness, but others walked away from it as if it could be forgotten. The author built up …show more content…
The attack leaves Peter with speech and coordination problems and awful nightmares. Since Cole wants to avoid going to jail, he decides to try something called Circle Justice, which in the book is described as “Circle Justice tries to heal, not punish,” by Garvey, Cole’s parole officer. Circle Justice’s goal is to not have the people involved in the problem go away angry at each other. Cole at the beginning is lying his way through the group meetings because he thought it was all one big joke. The Circle’s idea is to banish Cole to a remote Alaskan island for a year so he could find himself and not be distracted by other people. However, this doesn’t go to plan because Cole gets badly injured by the Spirit Bear after he tried to kill it. When the Circle meets again they know about everything Cole has done on the island and not to believe many of the things he says, but when Garvey and Edwin start speaking they’re the only ones speaking in his favor and they spoke about how Cole was not fully changed but was now in the correct …show more content…
“Nobody ever touched him except to hit him. That’s how it had been as long as he could remember.” Cole’s father and mother were both bad alcoholics and when his father was drunk he would beat Cole with a belt while his mother stood by watching. Cole’s mother never stood up for Cole because she was just as afraid of her husband as Cole. Before his parents divorced they would come to get him out of jail before he could even get him out of jail but now they had no control because of the severity of the problem. Because Cole’s father beat him and his mom didn’t do anything he grew up mad at the world and blaming it for all of his problems even though he caused many of them. After Cole’s bear attack his father was charged with child abuse, but he didn’t even spend a day in jail before paying bail after getting out of jail he never visited his son in the hospital he just walked away not bothering to make amends. Cole’s mother, however, visited Cole every day and stayed with him as long as she could. During one of her visits she tells Cole that she’s quit drinking and wants to start a new life with him once all this is done. “ Your father isn’t a bad person, but when he was younger, he had parents who beat him for everything he did. That’s all he ever knew.” Cole’s mother tells him this one the same visit and this shows how Cole’s father grew up in almost the same situation as Cole.