Psychology of forgiveness and recovery from depression: Diagnosing the hopeless and hapless fictional women

Abstract

Though a literary study, this paper aims at investigating how hope and depression, two binary ends of psycho-physical condition, can be bridged up by forgiveness acting as an intermediate.  Hope and goal can meet together only with the proper intermediation and association of agency thinking and pathway thinking. Non-achievement of goal and consequent loss of hope are triggered by the absence of such association that often results from the negative impact of some unwelcome event or injustice. Thus, hope is often challenged by the external (or even internal) forces that hurt. The cumulative outcome is despair and depression. But forgiveness is a weapon that can free us from all the negative forces (that a wrong deed exerts), and can empower one to fight despair and remediate depressive symptoms. The primary objective of the study is to apply the psychological theory of hope to the analysis of the select women’s depression and role of forgiveness in fighting against it and in restoring hope/faith in life. The analysis of the cases of the modern fictional women like Meena or Mrs. Thurlow has revealed this. On the other hand, in Mrs. Das or Rosie, the relationship between basic hope and final happy outcome remains unbridgeable due to the absence of sincere act of forgiveness. The stronger the hope, the more powerful the chances of exoneration of the self through forgiveness, the more reasons for celebration of life, the more freed from the negative impacts of the offenders.