Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Forgiveness and Compassion
Religion and Moral Truth
Remembrance
Anti-Semitism and Dehumanization
Silence, Guilt, and Resistance
Summary
Analysis
The Cardinal acknowledges that an individual cannot forgive what was done to others, but he may forgive anyway. On the question of whether there is a limit to forgiveness, he looks to the example of Christ and finds that there is no limit.
König follows the established pattern of Catholic respondents who look to Jesus as the primary example of moral living on earth.
Themes
The Cardinal recognizes that pardoning Karl would have surpassed mere human kindness. However, he believes that Simon had an opportunity for an act of “almost superhuman goodness in the midst of a subhuman and bestial world of atrocities.”
