Springtime reminds us that redemption is possible, especially if we seek it.
Redemption is a difficult idea for many people to grasp and accept. The idea is that no matter what we have done in the past, we can live productively in the future. This may not sit well with someone whose life has been turned upside-down by violent or thoughtless behavior.
In 1969, Senator Edward M. Kennedy drove his car off a bridge, causing the death of a young woman passenger. He did not report the incident for many hours. This behavior was heinous, reprehensible and cowardly. As the surviving heir to America’s pre-eminent political dynasty, Kennedy faced calls for his resignation; in fact he posed that question to his constituents. He remained in office and in the United States Senate for forty more years. Despite facing other personal challenges during those years, including alcohol, he became one of the most respected senators in American history, noted for his hard work, persistence and ability to forge compromise despite what many saw as a controversial ideology.
Redemption depends on forgiveness, by the self more than by others. You may protest: “I can never undo the damage I’ve done. What right have I to forgive myself?” What right have you not to? You have an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others. Whatever you have done wrong does not prevent you from doing right in the future.
Whatever we have done – whether large or small, reprehensible or merely silly – we can still accomplish great things and live a life of generous service to others if we overcome the inclination to be bound by shame and guilt, and treat each day – each moment – as an opportunity to do something worthwhile. The good news about redemption is that it is mainly up to us.
Real
True Narratives
Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy fell from grace when he accidentally drove a car off a bridge, causing the death of a young woman, whose company with him was questionable. His political career survived, and he remained in the Senate for nearly 40 years after that, becoming one of U.S.. history’s most accomplished and respected Senators.
- Peter S. Canellos, Last Lion: The Fall and Rise of Ted Kennedy (Simon & Schuster, 2009).
- John A. Farrell, Ted Kennedy: A Life (Penguin Press, 2022): “The Man Who Became the ‘Lion of the Senate’”.
Other true narratives of redemption:
- Eric Foner, The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery (W.W. Norton & Company, 2010). [Foner tells how Lincoln overcame a racist past to become the Great Emancipator.]
- Ginger Gaffney, Half Broke: A Memoir (W.W. Norton & Company, 2020): “What she finds on the ranch is a group of damaged people and a group of damaged horses. The book documents a year and a half of finding deep connection and even communion with both.”
- Neil Gabler, Catching the Wind: Edward Kennedy and the Liberal Hour, 1932-1975 (Crown, 2020): “Over the course of five decades, Ted Kennedy had sponsored nearly 700 bills that became law, and left his imprint on scores of others.”
- Molly Shannon, Hello, Molly!:A Memoir (Ecco, 2022): “Parts are as plain and strong as Hemingway, with some internal monologues that are downright Joycean. Really. It’s very sad and very, very funny. Redemptive and uplifting and all those corny words.”
- Keri Blakinger, Corrections in Ink: A Memoir (St. Martin’s Press, 2002): “A Harrowing Journey From Cornell to Addiction to Prison”.
- Laurie Woolever, Care and Feeding: A Memoir (Ecco, 2025): “After sobriety, the book tilts toward Quit Lit. Woolever practices gratitude and prayer. . . . this arc retroactively casts the hitherto delightfully neutral account of her behavior into a redemption narrative . . .”
Redemption in literature:
- Thomas J. Ferraro, Transgression & Redemption in American Fiction (Oxford University Press, 2020).
- Dan P. McAdams, The Redemptive Self: Stories Americans Live By (Oxford University Press, 2013).
Technical and Analytical Readings
Photographs
Documentary and Educational Films
- Trouble the Water, about Hurricane Katrina and a “big woman with a great big mouth”
Imaginary
Fictional Narratives
Novels:
- Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2003): “THIS powerful first novel, by an Afghan physician now living in California, tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir, Khaled Hosseini's privileged young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invasion by Russian forces.”
- Dinaw Mengestu, How to Read the Air: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2010): “. . . Mengestu distinguishes this book by adeptly using Yosef’s story to deepen the narrative, and by creating Jonas’s redemption through the character’s act of story-retelling.”
- Bruce Machart, The Wake of Forgiveness: A Novel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010), “is a mesmerizing, mythic saga of four motherless brothers at war with one another and with their stern father, driven to establish himself as the biggest landowner in Lavaca County, Tex. Above all, as its title promises, it’s a story about forgiveness and a hard-won redemption.”
- Russell Banks, Lost Memory of Skin: A Novel (Ecco, 2011), about a sex offender released from prison and struggling to integrate into society.
- Jonathan Evison, The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving: A Novel (Algonquin Books, 2012), revealing “a yearning, damaged, struggling Ben Benjamin, father now to no one but beloved by all who find themselves in his care.”
- Mesha Maren, Sugar Run: A Novel (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2019): “'Sugar Run' explores place, connection and redemption in the face of the justice system and the struggle to avoid destructive choices. The book begins with the protagonist Jodi’s release from prison after having served 18 years — more than half her life — for a murder . . .”
- Andrew Miller, The Slowworm’s Song: A Novel (Sceptre, 2022): “An Ex-Soldier Seeks Redemption in a Letter to His Daughter”.
- Justin Taylor, Reboot: A Novel (Pantheon, 2024): “. . . as the end approaches, the book’s two strands — violent PopCon mania and the private redemption tale — grow increasingly at odds.”
- Erin Langston, Forever Your Rogue: A Novel (Erin Langston, 2023): “. . . we meet Nathaniel Travers, the rake who reforms himself: one of the most utterly gorgeous character transformations historical romance has offered up in some time.”
- Jenny Xie, Holding Pattern: A Novel (Riverhead Books, 2023): “As Kathleen tries to be close — to her clients, her mother, herself — what unspools is often so tender that it hurts. But hope threads us back, encourages us to understand the intricacies of this life, and then to try again.”
- Michael Deagler, Early Sobrieties: A Novel (Astra House, 2024): “Michael Deagler’s first novel follows a young man who is piecing his life back together and trying very hard not to drink.”
N.K. Jemisin, Broken Earth Trilogy:
- N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky: A Novel (Orbit, 2017): “Like all good stories in this genre — like N. K. Jemisin’s extraordinary Broken Earth trilogy of slavery, revolution, destruction and redemption, for instance, which concludes with her new novel, ‘The Stone Sky’ — the story of how epic fantasy and the adjacent realm of science fiction were transformed is a long one.”
- N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate: A Novel (Orbit, 2016): “Jemisin’s depictions of mob behavior are frighteningly realistic. And she offers a perceptive and painful portrayal of two different kinds of abusive relationships between parent and child. She also generates huge amounts of nuanced sympathy for some (but not all) of the characters driven to do truly dreadful things, often accidentally, to save themselves and the ones they love.”
- N.K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season: A Novel (Orbit, 2015): “. . . Jemisin’s intricate and extraordinary world-building starts with oppression: Her universes begin by asking who is oppressing whom, what they are gaining, what they fear.”
Poetry
We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president, only to find herself reciting for one.
[from Amanda Gorman, “The Hill We Climb”]
Music: Composers, artists, and major works
Compositions:
- Giacomo Puccini, La Fanciulla del West (The Girl of the Golden West) (1910) (approx. 127-146’) (libretto): a kind-hearted woman, friend to all, redeems a thief. Performances with video feature Stella & Limarilli (de Fabritiis) in 1963, Neblett & Domingo (Santi) in 1983, Stemme & Kaufman (Welser-Möst), and Kampe & Álvarez (Pappano) in 2021. Top audio-recorded performances feature Steber & del Monaco (Mitropoulos) in 1954, Frazzoni & Corelli (Votto) in 1956, Tebaldi & del Monaco (Capuana) in 1958, Olivero & Barioni (de Fabritiis) in 1967, and Neblett & Domingo (Mehta) in 1978.
- César Franck, Rédemption, FWV 52 (1871, rev. 1874) (approx. 52-58’): “. . . the composer assigns celestial music to the women’s voices (The Angels), but the passages for the Earthly Choir and Men’s Choir are also imbued with a sense of the ecstatic.” Excellent recordings are conducted by Plasson, Niquet, and Fournet.
- Giuseppe Verdi, I Lombardi alla Prima Crociata (The Lombards on the First Crusade) (1843) (approx. 129-136’) falls short of humanistic ideals but at least Pagano, who has murdered his father while trying to murder his brother, repents in the moments before his death. A video-recorded performance features di Biasio & Pertusi (Callegari) in 2009. Audio-recorded performances feature Scotto, Raimondi & Pavarotti & (Gavazzeni) in 1969, Anderson, Leech & Pavarotti (Levine) in 1996.
- Ambroise Thomas, Mignon (1866) (approx. 130-156’) (libretto) is a redemption allegory. The story ends as “Lothario, who had lost his memory years ago after his daughter was kidnapped, remembers that he is in fact Count Lothario and Mignon is his daughter Sperata.” Performances are conducted by Chaslin, Herbert, Maag, and Deneve.
- Raga Shyamshree (Shyamshri – Shyam Shri – Shyam Shree): performances are by the composer Amjad Ali Khan, Amjad Ali Khan, and Amjad Ali Khan.
- Laurent Petitgirard, Si Yeou Ki (The Journey to the West) (2020) (approx. 74’) “is a ballet that tells the story of a monk named Xuanzang who is sent on a perilous journey of redemption from China to India in order to seek out the scriptures of Truth in the Land of Buddha. The ordeals of Xuanzang and his companions are expressed in music that reflects the poetry and spiritual elevation found in this great monument of Chinese literature.” Petitgirard explains the work on his website; and in this video, which is followed by a recording of the ballet in segments. You can read the 16th-century story, by Wu Cheng’en, here.
Music: songs and other short pieces
- Matt Greenwood, “Redemption”
- David Bowie, “Lazarus” (lyrics)
Visual Arts
- Pedro Brull, The Redemption Accordin Dali
Film and Stage
- Paris, Texas, about a moody characterwho has made every relationship calamitous but then heroically does what is best for his son and ex-wife; it is a film about “loss and loneliness and eccentricity”
- The Kite Runner: a man returns to his native Afghanistan, which has fallen to the Taliban, to rescue the person he betrayedas a child, then left behind
- Tender Mercies, abouta fallen country singer who foregoes a second chance at his career to stay with his family
- The Fighter: a boxerovercomes a losing streak and a dysfunctional family, while his brother – a former boxer – overcomes his drug habit
- The Shawshank Redemption: a prisoner wrongfully convictedinspires another prisoner to reclaim his life
- Abhijan(The Expedition), in which a taxi driver immerses himself in drugs and crime but then rescues one of his victims
- Drunken Angel, aboutpersonal redemption
- The Fisher King, anothertale of redemption
- Secret Honor: was Nixon’s resignation a patriotic act?That is the film’s premise; we do not need to agree with it to get the point.
- The Verdict: an alcoholic attorney, by chance on the side of justice, wins a big case and salvages his self-esteem