Multi-Genre Theme Project

Guilt​  　R​ inaRhodes 

Dear reader
This book is written about guilt, the way people think about guilt, how

they get over it and how I think about it. I chose this word guilt for my project
because I thought it would be a word that could be found in almost any
situation. As an example, as a kid, when you lied to your parents that you
finished your homework when you actually haven’t and they seemed really
happy that you were able to finish it by yourself. Did you feel happy by making
them feel good or feel guilty for making them happy with a lie and not the
truth? Even in this single situation, there are at least two ways to feel guilty; to
feel guilty for lying or to feel guilty, to tell the truth. This word guilt means
everything to me. You can feel guilty for anything, but lot’s of times you divert
your eyes from that truth. From reading “Night” and the other genres I
collected, the way I used to think about guilt has changed extremely. I thought
the guilt would be used just for bad things, like lying, getting angry at
someone. But now, I think guilt is used so that you don’t have to face the other
person or face the truth that you were trying to hide, even to yourself. If there
is guilt for everything and you don’t notice that, I wanted to tell you that you
can escape guiltiness and that there are lots of ways to forgive yourself. You
probably will feel guilty again in your life but don't get wrapped in your
feelings. Please try to forgive you, even though sometimes this is an extremely
hard thing to ask, I at least hope you will have an extremely great day!

Rina Rhodes

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

Endnote for the poem from  

Steve Maraboli: 

This poem is connected to guilt by how it shows how 
people are feeling guilty, ashamed, despaired to their own 
self by just living normally and that they don't have to 
anguish by others or what you have done. You can be proud 
of who you are and how you lived. It connects to guilt 
strongly and connects to the opposite thing of guilt which 
could be goodness or maybe hope. Which is the last part of 
the poem and you are here NOW with the power to shape 
your day and your future. I think it means that you don't 
have to feel guilty for others. You can look forward and live 
your own story. 

I chose this poem because I thought that it is showing the 
dark place of humans. How everyone feels guilty for a lot of 
things and thinks that things are hopeless. But in this 
poem, shows how small your thinking was, and how huge 
the world is. 

● “It pained me that I could not weep. 
….And deep inside me, if I could have 
searched the recesses of my feeble 
conscience, I might have found 
something like: Free at last!...”( ​Night 
112) 

 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Endnote for the drawing: 

I find this drawing connected to the word guilty because I 
think it is showing the dark feelings created by being guilty. Like 
the color and how he is being trapped in a bag that doesn't have 
enough air that he will need to survive. I think it shows how you 
feel when you are guilty. You may think that you are all alone in 
the huge world, and are blamed for everything in the world for 
feeling or doing that. But in this drawing, it is showing that you 
never are alone. As you can see in the drawing, in the dark ocean, 
in a bag with not enough air, there is still a fish inside the bag 
trying to open the bag. Which I think is representing the people 
important to you, that is always trying to help you. I chose this 
drawing because I thought it shows the human feelings very 
clearly - How they cannot escape from their feelings but even in 
the dark ocean in a bag with not enough air, you are still not 
alone, and I thought that was important. A lot of people, however, 
are not able to notice that when they actually are feeling guilty. 
That you are never guilty for everything and there always is a 
person or maybe even an animal or plant right beside you trying 
to let you escape from that guiltiness. 

● He was still alive when I passed him. 
His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet 
extinguished. ….That night, the soup 
tasted of corpses” ( ​Night​ 65) 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Endnote for the quote from  

Kahlil Gibran: 

I chose this quote because I thought this quote is explaining 
the true character of the word guilt. It is easy to forgive a person 
or even to forget about that person, but when it comes to yourself, 
what you have done to that person will become way more difficult 
to forgive yourself for doing something to someone else or even to 
yourself. It can happen in anything even if you did not injure that 
person directly, you may think that you hurt that person's 
feelings. That will become guilt. I think guilt will be born when 
people think that something isn't right to do and when they think 
that they made a mistake. Sometimes, I think there are more than 
enough people feeling guilty for an action or feelings they had in 
their past, when it may be that the other person has already 
forgotten about. But on the other side, I think that there are 
people that are not feeling guilty when they probably should. I 
thought that this quote showed that part a lot, so I choose this 
quote from Kahlil Gibran. 

 

 

 

● “I stood petrified. ...My father had just 
been struck in front of me, and I had not 
even blinked. I had watched and kept 
silent” ( ​Night ​39) 
 

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

Look at your right and look at your left. What do 
you see? The treasure you got? Now look down, 
down at your feet. What do you see? Garbage all 
around you. Covered with dust, Which once was 
beside you. The precious treasure that always was 
there. 

 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

Endnote for the poem I created: 

I created this poem and chose to use it because I thought it 
is showing how lots of people are trying to not see their guiltiness 
and act like they never even had such feelings, which is 
impossible for an animal that has feelings and can get hurt by 
words, but I think it is easy for some people too, to look away 
from their own feelings and live happily, and for some people it 
probably is really hard to act like they can't see their feelings. I 
chose to use it because I wanted to show how many feelings a 
person has and as the writer writing this, I normally don't think a 
lot and just look away from the guilty feelings but you are able to 
have feelings and you are able to not look at your feelings, there 
isn't any right or wrong. For me, I think it doesn't matter even if 
you run away from the feelings, because it doesn't mean that you 
are bad because of the one thing you did, sometimes you think too 
much and start thinking that every bad thing that happens is all 
your fault, but that never is true so I wanted you to notice that you 
are able to not look at those dark feelings because sometimes you 
are doing that without noticing that you are. 

● “The old man mumbled something, 
groaned and died. Nobody cared. His 
son searched him, took the crust of 
bread, and began to devour it. He didn’t 
get far. Two men had been watching 
him… There were two dead bodies next 
to me, the father and the son”( N​ ight 
101) 

 

 

 
 

 

 

ENDNOTE for BLACKOUT POEM: 

I created this blackout poem and chose to use it because I 
think it is showing the guiltiness from the way he cannot forget 
about the guilty feelings but is still trying to forget about it. Even 
when he knows that it is better for the others and himself to not 
say anything and just forget about it, he is still not able to do that 
so he is tied up by his own feelings, and as you can see on the last 
sentence "still running". He is not able to run away from his 
feelings or change his guiltiness. I chose this quote because I felt 
like it is showing how people will be when they are feeling guilty. 
Their own feeling that they think they did something bad will not 
change that easily. That is why they will keep trying to be better 
and better, but at last they will notice that the feeling will never 
disappear. Even if you did 100 good things if you did 1 bad thing 
you will feel guilty for doing that 1 thing by forgetting how many 
good things you have done for others. I thought like this poem 
was showing the struggle the people go through after feeling 
guilty and how he isn't a bad person but is still saying that he is 
guilty. 

“Yet at the same time, a thought crept 
into my mind: If only I didn’t find him! If 
only I were relieved of this responsibility, I 
could use all my strength to fight for my 
own survival, to take care only for 
myself...Instantly, I felt ashamed, ashamed 
of myself forever”(​ Night​ 106). 

 

BIbliography:

“Kahlil Gibran Quotes Archives - Page 2 of 3.” ​Brain Quotes,​
www.braintrainingtools.org/skills/writer/kahlil-gibran-quotes/page/2/.​

“Maria Teresa D'Austria a Trieste.” S​ potlime,​  
www.spotlimeapp.com/trieste/Maria Teresa d'Austria a 
Trieste-Magazzino delle Idee-158623694.

“Search Results for ‘We All Make Mistakes Have Struggles’ (Showing 1-1 of 1 Quote).”
Goodreads,​ Goodreads, www.goodreads.com/search?utf8=✓&q=we all make
mistakes have struggles&search_type=quotes.

 
Rina Rhodes ​is the author of this work “GUILT”. 

This is the first book she has created from her born. She has 
been living in Japan in her childhood with her parents and 
siblings. Now lives in Portland in United states. She spent an 
peaceful childhood, and starts to think about humans feelings 
from that time. The answer to that isn’t known yet.