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What Forgiveness Teaches UsAbout Research MethodsHelen K. Black PhD aa Polisher Research Institute , 261 Old YorkRoad, Suite 427, P.O. Box 728, Jenkintown, PA,19046-7128, USAPublished online: 04 Oct 2008.

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What Forgiveness Teaches UsAbout Research Methods

Helen K. Black, PhD

ABSTRACT. This paper highlights the analytical and descriptive compo-nents of qualitative research. Narratives collected through ethnographicinterviewing emphasize the unique meaning, to an elder, of a particular ex-perience. The experience of forgiving someone or being forgiven wasqualitatively researched through a project entitled: “Forgiveness as con-cept and tool at the end of the lifespan.” A sample of forty elders, varied bygender, race and religious adherence, narrated their life stories and storiesof forgiveness. Using a case study from the original “forgiveness” project,this article reports how an elderly woman determined that an incident inher life required forgiveness. Analysis identifies the elder as the expert onher experiences of forgiveness, and the paper examines the interviewer’srole in the process of the ethnographic interview. [Article copies availablefor a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH.E-mail address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Case study, life stories, qualitative research, forgive-ness, religiousness

Helen K. Black is Senior Research Scientist, Polisher Research Institute, 261 OldYork Road, Suite 427, P.O. Box 728, Jenkintown, PA 19046-7128.

The author sincerely thanks Mrs. Brown for her generosity in sharing her life storyand story of forgiveness with her. She also thanks the Nathan Cummings Foundationfor supporting the “forgiveness” research.

Research was funded by the Nathan Cummings Foundation. This paper was developedfrom the inaugural lecture in the Spirituality, Aging and Ethics Lecture Series supported bythe Center on Religion, Ethics and Culture, College of the Holy Cross.

Gerontology & Geriatrics Education, Vol. 23(4) 2003http://www.haworthpress.com/store/product.asp?sku=J021

2003 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 310.1300/J021v23n04_02

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INTRODUCTION

Students of gerontology use various methods to study the lives of el-ders. Collecting narratives through ethnographic interviewing is oneway to discover the meaning that elders attach to particular life experi-ences, such as living in poverty or being childless. The student/inter-viewer discovers the value that the elder places on a particular experi-ence, and how the meaning of that experience fits into the meaning ofthe elder’s life as a whole (Rubinstein, 1992). Ethnographic interview-ing acknowledges the elder as the expert on her life, as well as the pre-eminent narrator of her life’s story (Black, 2001).

This method was used when forty elders were interviewed concern-ing their personal definitions, experiences, and theories about forgive-ness–a concept that lends itself well to the methods of qualitativeresearch (Black, 1999). No pre-set definition of forgiveness was offeredin the research proposal; rather, “forgiveness” was to be defined and de-termined by the elders interviewed for the study. A premise of the re-search was that the word forgiveness has little meaning without linkingit to an experience in which the elder forgave someone, withheld for-giveness, or was herself forgiven. Another premise of the research wasthat in order to understand a respondent’s approach to forgiveness, theinterviewer must place the elder, as well as the incident that prompts orprecludes forgiveness, in a personal history and a cultural context.

By presenting a detailed case study, this manuscript delves into theuse of collecting narratives as both a teaching and learning tool. Thecase I have selected reveals the intimate yet professional interaction be-tween interviewer and respondent, and recounts the dialogue betweenthem (Stake, 1995). This article also offers the interviewer’s interpreta-tion of the elder’s narratives.

BACKGROUND

Gerontological Research

If gerontology speaks to, and not simply about the aged, it must in-clude an approach that has significance for the individual (Hillman,1999). The phenomenological, qualitative approach to research ex-plores the meaning of a particular experience to a person. Within theframe of an ethnographic, narrative interview, the elder reveals her sub-jective take on an event, incident, time period, or singular experience.

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The goal of eliciting narratives in qualitative research is to portray thecomplexity of the respondent’s perspective and the personal and cul-tural frameworks in which the elder sets that perspective (Widdershoven,1993). Generalizations are fleshed out; “lived experiences” are drawnwith individual faces. The interviewer’s goal is to elicit the elder’s nar-rative, to contextualize what the elder reveals, and to penetrate themeaning that the elder takes and makes from the experience being re-searched.

The initial question the interviewer asks is to hear the elder’s lifestory. Hearing “when” and “where” the respondent begins her life storyusually reveals a salient issue or theme in the respondent’s life. The el-der’s life story also provides, for both interviewer and informant, aframework from which later to draw relevant information or topicalprompts that help elders elaborate their responses (Spradley, 1979;Strauss & Corbin, 1990).

The life story is also significant because an elder’s story of forgive-ness cannot stand outside the life story. The act or impulse to forgive isembedded in an elder’s self and worldview. The forgiveness story por-trays a pattern of attitudes and behaviors that the elder revealedthroughout life. It voices the same moral tone that she uses to judge atti-tudes and behaviors as good or bad, and right or wrong. Themes in theforgiveness story mirror important issues or themes in the life story.Multiple layers of meaning emerge from each narrative; both disclosethe ongoing development of an elder’s identity. Because cultural, reli-gious or spiritual beliefs usually underlie an elder’s attitude about for-giveness, a forgiveness story also may reveal the current point in anelder’s spiritual journey (Soskice, 1987). The interviewer’s use of tai-lor-made follow-up question probes, as well as through interpretation ofthe elder’s use of language, such as metaphors, helps achieve this goal(Morse & Field, 1995).

Eliciting narratives in qualitative research welcomes individual, con-text-laden stories. This approach both contrasts and complements thegeneral and aggregate data of quantitative research, as well as the struc-tured schedule that elicits closed-ended responses (Bradley, Fried,Kasl, & Idler, 2001). Ethnographic interviewing acknowledges com-monalities within and across groups of respondents while affirming theuniqueness of the individual and her universe of one.

The interviewer’s role is significant in the research because the set-ting of the interview is a shared stage in which the interviewer becomesco-actor in weaving the elder’s tale (Holstein & Gubrium, 1997). Theinterviewer follows the elder’s narrative lead, asks pertinent questions

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that may not be included in the interview schedule, and provides insightinto the elder’s comments by relating the manner in which they weresaid, such as with hesitation or emphasis. The interviewer also de-scribes the respondent’s self-presentation and the physical setting of theinterview, such as the elder’s home. Perhaps most importantly, the in-terviewer recognizes that the elder who is asked to reveal her story–inthis case, the story of forgiveness–is the expert on her experience.

FORGIVENESS

As a practical tool, forgiveness is significant in coping with anger orhurt and moving beyond them. Forgiveness aids in the social maneuver-ing through the conflicts and cruelties in human life–by denoting a per-sonal or communal experience of giving up rights to requital (Halling,1994). Giving up this “right” requires an active role on the part of the“wronged” and toward the “wrongdoer.” This dyad represents a utilitar-ian notion of forgiveness as a dynamic in a process of choice (Jacoby,1983).

From the perspective of Western religions, the centrality of forgive-ness in Western thought and social action acknowledges the legacy ofJudaism and Christianity (Nolan, 1992; Seltzer, 1989). Individuals maynot link their interpretation of forgiveness to any religious tradition orset of spiritual beliefs, but instead view forgiveness as a pragmatic, so-cial amenity (Arendt, 1958). The extent, however, to which religiousbeliefs are internalized as cultural or ethnic traditions was one of thequestions posed in the design of the study. A personal dynamic of for-giveness may disclose an individual’s sense of the sacred. Its tie to cul-tural morality, Western religious beliefs, and a personal standard ofethics link it to a spiritual view of life (Blazer, 1991).

Forgiveness might be seen as a special property of the aged. Thestimulus of finality may push elders to settle up the markers of the past,to tie up loose ends, or to clean the slate on their own or others’ mis-deeds in order to achieve peace of mind. Prior research, however, showsno evidence that older age of itself demands forgiveness of self or othersin order to approach the end of life with equanimity (Black &Rubinstein, 2001).

What is shown in prior research is that an elder’s need to resolve pastwrongs is subsumed under a personal and communal cohort history andthe cultural, ethnic, racial and religious traditions to which the elder ad-heres (Snowden, 2001). The variables of identity, such as gender and

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race, also shape attitudes about forgiveness that are experienced in olderage. Most importantly, the concrete incident or event that raises for-giveness as an issue is central to whether an elder forgives or withholdsforgiveness (Calhoun, 1992; Patton, 1985). In other words, to under-stand what prompts an elder to forgive calls for eliciting elders’ life sto-ries and stories of forgiveness.

METHODS OF ORIGINAL STUDY

Forty respondents were interviewed for the “Forgiveness” study. Thestudy used an open-ended interview schedule that asked first to hear theelder’s life story and then to hear a story about forgiveness. Questionsthat followed explored cultural, religious and spiritual beliefs, and thevalue (or lack of value) of an elder perceiving herself as “forgiving.”They were recruited from past and present rosters of community-dwellingPolisher Research Institute Center informants as well as through seniorcenters, churches, and synagogues. Respondents were asked initially totell the “story of your life.” Other questions asked them to: (1) tell astory of forgiveness; (2) engage in a specific discussion of whether any-one could “never” be forgiven and why; (3) discuss whether religiousbeliefs act as a motor for forgiveness (including perceived forgivenessof self by God, or forgiveness of God). The interview, conducted in re-spondents’ homes for intimacy and comfort, took approximately twohours, and was completed in one session. Respondents were offered anhonorarium for their time.

The Study Participants

The one case used in this manuscript is selected from an in-depthstudy of the twenty men and twenty women involved in the “forgive-ness” project. The average age of the participants was 77, and theyranged in age from 70 to 88. Fourteen of the men were white, six wereAfrican-American; similarly thirteen of the women were white andseven were African-American. Typically the men had completed highschool, yet the modal level of education attained by the women waseleventh grade. Most of the participants (twelve men and ten women)defined themselves as middle income, and four of the men and sevenwomen defined themselves as lower income. Half the men and eight ofthe women were currently married; six women were divorced. With theexception of one man who answered “none” to describe his religious

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adherence, sixty percent of the men and women were Christian andnearly forty percent were Jewish.

The following case displays the content and structure of an ethnographicinterview. In this case study the reader hears two voices: the elder’svoice as she narrates her life story and story of forgiveness and the au-thor’s voice as she interprets the elder’s stories. The interdependence ofvoices is significant to the process of the interview.

MRS. BROWN’S STORY OF FORGIVENESS

Mrs. Brown (a pseudonym) is an 82-year-old European-Americandivorcee who lives alone in the home that was bought by her mother. Itis an old, eight-room, neatly kept brick house with stained glass win-dows and elaborate woodwork. Because she suffers from crippling ar-thritis, and receives only a small social security stipend as income, thehouse is now “too big to keep up,” but she cannot afford to move. Whenasked to tell the story of her life, she replied:

Well, I grew up with five brothers and one sister and we werepretty poor. At that time my father couldn’t get a job and mymother had to work. And we were pretty happy together. Andthen, I guess I got married first. And I had two girls. And well,I didn’t have too happy a marriage. The only time there was happi-ness was when I had my children. They made me happy. And I’dvisit home quite frequently. And my sister, she got married next,so I used to visit her. And that was about the extent of my life.

Mrs. Brown begins her life story by placing herself in a web of rela-tionships. She defines her life through closeness with her family of originand with her children. The working-class Philadelphia neighborhoods inwhich she lived since childhood provide the setting. The hardships ofthe Great Depression, her father’s inability to find work, and her mother’sabsence from their home drew strict parameters around her early life.Mrs. Brown’s mother worked as a live-in domestic. Mrs. Brown there-fore “just about raised” her younger siblings; as the eldest girl in thefamily, she was expected to stand in for her mother. The events of thewider world and her family’s personal circumstances are intertwined inher narrative. She describes herself as a “home type girl” whose sociallife was restricted by her responsibilities.

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We lived on the same block as two sisters. My sister and I wanted tosit out on the steps with them. But we couldn’t sit out ’til the others[siblings] were asleep. So, I’d go upstairs and pick the baby [youn-gest brother] up and walk around the room with him. And just whenI’d try to put him down he’d open his big blue eyes. I’d hit him onthe backside and say, “go to sleep” [laughter]. I was fifteen.

Mrs. Brown left school in the eleventh grade to work in a factory nearher North Philadelphia home. She worked the early shift in order tohurry home each evening to prepare the family dinner. She followedthis routine for over 10 years. She describes herself as a “shy and back-ward 28-year-old who hardly ever dated” when a handsome securityguard at the factory “picked [her] out of the crowd.” They marriedwithin six months of meeting. Her remark implies that her husband“chose” her; did she feel that she had no choice in the decision? Shegave birth to her elder daughter one year after marriage; her youngerdaughter was born almost seven years later. She learned early on in themarriage that her husband was “selfish.”

He figured that once you get married you should forget your fam-ily. If I wanted to make a phone call I had to pretend I’m going tothe store for something and make a quick call to see how every-body was at home. That hurt me a lot. See, it didn’t bother him thathe didn’t see his brothers or sisters for months. But with me, I wor-ried about all of them.

Mrs. Brown reports that her husband was physically and verballyabusive to her, “especially when he drank.” He was also unfaithful. Sheadmits, however, that if he had not objected to her visits and calls homethe marriage could have been “different.” She wanted the marriage to“work.” Her husband was neither a hard worker nor demonstrative totheir children; his lack of ambition and fatherly love coalesced into ex-treme disappointment with him. Emotional and financial insecurity areintricately linked in her memories of marital unhappiness.

Mrs. Brown: In the beginning it was hard because he didn’t makethat much money and I couldn’t work so we really had it tough.Interviewer: You mean financially?Mrs. Brown: Financially and the way he acted and treated me.Interviewer: He didn’t treat you well?

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Mrs. Brown: No. He wasn’t close to the children, like some fathersare, you know, they pick them up and kiss them. I don’t ever re-member him picking either one of my daughters up or changingtheir diapers or anything.Interviewer: So that hurt you?Mrs. Brown: Oh, definitely, yes, definitely.

Mrs. Brown believes that she was treated badly because her daugh-ters were ignored; she imagines the pain they felt because of their fa-ther’s lack of affection. Ultimately, it was her husband’s inability orunwillingness to be a “family man” that forced her to leave the homethat she “scrimped and saved for” because “he just got too bad–with thedrinking and what not.” She found an apartment not far from the houseshe left; her children continued their education at the Catholic schoolthey attended since kindergarten.

The only thing I worried about was my health, that I’d be able towork and put them through high school, which thank God I did.The three of us got along very good together. Then my oldestdaughter got out of high school and she started work and that madethings a little bit easier. And then my youngest daughter got out ofhigh school and that made things a lot easier.

While on her own, Mrs. Brown’s goal was single-minded–to makesure that both daughters got the high school education that she missed.She clarifies that as her daughters grew, she expected them to maintaina relationship with their father. Even after he married again, she encour-aged them to visit him and welcome his visits. When asked, Mrs. Brownshrugged and said that her positive attitude toward her ex-husband had“nothing to do with forgiveness.” After she was “free of him, it just didn’tmatter anymore.” This comment suggests that to her, an act of forgive-ness involves an incident, time period, or person that continues to hauntor hurt her. After the divorce, indifference toward her ex-husband re-placed anger or ill will. When asked about the happy times in her life,Mrs. Brown smiled.

Well, I guess some of my memories–. And thinking about goodtimes. During the war my mother made all these cookies. She gotnames of soldiers that didn’t get any letters or packages and sentthem cookies. There were cookies all over the kitchen andshoeboxes that she put them in. A lot of work, but she loved it.

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[Pause] And later, when she got sick, I took care of her. And Ithink of my sister, like at the holidays, when she used to getdressed up. I took care of her, too. And I took care of my oldestbrother for a while and my other brother for about a year. I think ofthem happy–like when they saw their grandchildren.

Happy times are connected to memories of her family–her mother’sgenerosity, her sister’s fashion sense, her brothers’ grandchildren, aswell as nursing them through illness. Thoughts of family members ingood health and in illness form a gallery of pictures in her mind’s eye.When asked about the saddest times in her life, she poses the flip side ofcaring for family members–losing them. In particular, it is witnessingthe deaths that occurred “out of order.”

You know, being as old as I am, you think that the oldest would gofirst. And then down the line. But it doesn’t work that way. Mymother lost two before she died. She never got over it. And now,with me, they’re all gone. You never know.

In the past 15 years, Mrs. Brown’s mother and all of her siblings diedfrom various causes; she nursed most of them in her own home untiltheir deaths. With each member’s passing, her role as caretaker dimin-ished and finally ceased. When asked to tell a story of forgiveness, sheconsidered:

Mrs. Brown: Well, one thing I think of which I regret is when mysister was sick, I did everything I could to help her and one day shesaid I didn’t do anything.Interviewer: What brought that up?Mrs. Brown: It came out of the blue (Pause). Once she said that shewished she could run up and down the steps like I was doing. I usedto run up and down the steps, oh, 20 times a day and she was stuckin the wheelchair. See, she needed oxygen at all times.Interviewer: What did you say to her?Mrs. Brown: I said okay, if I didn’t do anything then I won’t doanything. She had quite a few medicines to take. I used to put themout for her. I did all her wash. I said, “Let your daughter do it.” Be-cause she had a daughter who could have taken care of her but shedidn’t. She left it all up to me. And what hurt me the most was aftermy sister passed away, her daughter never thanked me. I took care

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of her mother two whole years. And that hurt me. [Respondent’semphasis]

This comment is dense with the actions and emotions not only ofMrs. Brown, but also those of her sister, and to a lesser extent, her sis-ter’s daughter. Who in this narrative needs forgiveness? In answeringthe question, it helps to reach back into Mrs. Brown’s life story to findwhat image she holds of herself and what words or actions would vio-late that image. Because she defines herself as a caretaker, the incidentor event that would most involve a need to forgive would probably in-clude an attack on her treasured self-view.

Interviewer: What happened after you stopped doing those things[for your sister]?Mrs. Brown: She had to do it herself. And when I think of it I feelso bad that I did that. [Pause] I remember her going to the book-case where I kept her medicine and she had to take each pill out,one by one. And when I think back on that, I feel so bad.

The memory of her sister sitting in a wheelchair beside the bookcase,struggling to shake a pill out of the many bottles of medicine she tookdaily becomes a snapshot frozen in time. Her empathy is poignantly vi-sual; it describes the emotional and physical impact of both her sister’sthoughtless words and her own regret for “punishing” her sister. Still, itremains unclear who needs to be forgiven. Is it her sister, her niece, orMrs. Brown herself?

Interviewer: Why is this a story of forgiveness?Mrs. Brown: It made me feel bad that I stopped doing some thingsfor her.Interviewer: Is that what needed to be forgiven?Mrs. Brown: [Pause]. And her saying what she said because sheknew I did everything for her. But then after thinking it over, well,she might have been in pain or feeling bad because her daughterreally didn’t help her at all.

Mrs. Brown brushes away some of the tangles in her story. In hermind a good woman is a caretaker, which is a role she diligently ful-filled. Because her sister questioned Mrs. Brown’s role as caretaker, shealso questioned the worth of Mrs. Brown’s entire life. There is morefault, therefore, in her sister’s cruel remark and in her niece’s lack of re-

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sponsibility than in her refusal to help her sister do “little things.” In-deed, Mrs. Brown continued to assist her sister in the daily activities ofliving that she could not perform herself. She clarifies that the hospitalencouraged her sister’s independence.

Mrs. Brown: I still helped bathe her. And her oxygen machine, too,I always put clean water in there. Because I didn’t think she coulddo that. The hospital told me when she came home that I should lether do–. They even told her how she could fix her bed and work inthe kitchen.Interviewer: Were you able to forgive your sister for what she saidto you?Mrs. Brown: I forgave her but I couldn’t forget it because I felt sobad that I did everything for her and she said I didn’t do anything.Interviewer: Did you ever discuss it?Mrs. Brown: No, she never mentioned it and I didn’t either.Interviewer: How about your niece?Mrs. Brown: Same thing. We still all get together, but it’s nevermentioned.

Mrs. Brown, like many respondents, differentiated between forgiv-ing someone yet not forgetting the “wrong” that was perpetrated. Hercomments also show that actions of forgiveness and “talk” about it areculturally rooted and sanctioned or tabooed. Just as Mrs. Brown was un-able to talk to her sister about the incident, she is reluctant to discuss herfeelings with her niece.

Interviewer: You spent so much of your life taking care of others.Do you miss doing that?Mrs. Brown: [Pause] I’m worried about my daughter getting a job’cause her husband is sickly and can’t work, so I pray about that.And I worry about my younger daughter’s health. I’d like to seeher gain some weight.

Mrs. Brown responds to the question of whether she misses being acaretaker with a list of current worries. It is important to note that herworry seems neither neurotic nor obsessive to the interviewer. Instead,it is translated into prayers for one daughter’s employment and the otherdaughter’s health. Her concern for their well-being becomes a sort ofmental caretaking. When asked how life is for her currently, she an-swers philosophically.

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You never know from day to day. Well, I know my mother wassick for a while before she died, and so were my two brothers andmy sister. But you live one day at a time, I guess. Each day is likeyour last. You just try to do the best you can and wait until tomor-row and start over again.

Mrs. Brown’s referent point for how she lived her life is her family. Itis little surprise that family members are the lodestar for her thoughtsabout dying and death. She realizes that she may not be given “sicktime” before death as did her mother and siblings. But no matter whatday is her last, it will be lived like all the days that came before–doingher best, waiting, and wanting to start over.

DISCUSSION

This paper reveals how an elderly woman’s story of forgiveness in-structs us in the art and science of the ethnographic approach to qualita-tive research. Her story of forgiveness is linked to her lifelong andtreasured self-view as caretaker for her family. Her narrative elaborateshow she names an incident as a “wrong” done to her, elucidates theevents that led to the incident, and interprets a reason for why the inci-dent occurred. Her interpretation neither harms her self-view nor dam-ages the memory of her relationship with her sister.

Mrs. Brown was raised to believe that a good woman takes care ofothers. Her story’s theme–caretaking–links the stages of her life, as wellas the duties that defined them. This theme began with her mother’s ab-sence during her childhood and bound her identity from childhood intoold age. She integrated her story of forgiveness into her life story as wellas into her primary role as caretaker. Therefore, her story of forgivenessdoes not occur in the abstract, but is intertwined with her major life roleas well as in the minutiae of a seemingly minor argument with her sister.

This study contextualized the lived experience of forgiveness bythreading Mrs. Brown’s forgiveness story into her life story. It showsMrs. Brown as embedded in a cohort history that applauded a womanfor being selfless and nurturing (Ahola, 1992; Stewart, 1994). It alsoshows her as rooted in a personal history that mandated caretaking asessential to the well-being of her family of origin. The incident thatprompted forgiveness is both obvious and subtle; Mrs. Brown’s narra-tive is both plain spoken and nuanced. It would be difficult for thereader to comprehend Mrs. Brown’s hurt from a thoughtless remark

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without knowing what she perceives as the core of her identity–awoman who “cares” for her family. Her story, therefore, discloseswhere she places her life’s worth as well as her moral worth. She re-states her self-appraisal as a caretaker through “worry” for her children.

This research portrays the relationship between the elder and the in-terviewer as a personal yet professional interaction. Mrs. Brown mustreflect on her own past and provide self-insight in order to relate her for-giveness story. Her recollection of the incident that required forgive-ness becomes, in miniature, a self-evaluation. For the interviewer, it isnecessary to enter Mrs. Brown’s local world, and to hear her story withan empathy that is rational, emotional, and visual. Recounting and inter-preting her story for the reader require that the interviewer honors Mrs.Brown’s self and worldview. In an act of trust and good will, it is the el-der who grants the legacy of her stories, and the interviewer who treatsthose narratives as a treasure.

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