Guilt

Guilt over the death of their mother drives the protagonists of Thomas Keneally’s latest novel, The Daughters of Mars, to volunteer as nurses in World War 1 but the author warns that it can be easy for writers to become ‘aficionados of guilt’. He also suggests that guilt can turn into a wellspring of altruism. 

Photo of Thomas Keneally copyright Sean Pollock.

Looking back both at her four novels and her life, Jordanian-British author Fadia Faqir realised how prominent a role guilt played in them. Perhaps that’s why one of her characters says: Paradise is a luminous white sheet without a single mark. It’s a space where there is no guilt.’  

Image copyright Fadia Faqir.

Fadia Faqir wants guilt to be made visible rather than kept hidden. Many try to combat shame and self-loathing in secret and in the privacy of their own homes. But imagine one morning you wake up with a debilitating sense of guilt, you tie a blue ribbon around your neck or your wrist and leave the house wearing it. Other people would see that and might start a conversation about your guilty feelings. Soon others would be wearing blue ribbon necklaces, showing that they struggle with feelings of guilt as much as you do. This would hopefully normalise guilt and help exorcise and eradicate it.