Gildiner’s Definition of a Hero

Gildiner expands the definition of a hero as she argues that her five patients are heroes because of the way they kept childhood abuse from shattering them as individuals. As Gildiner writes about her five patients, she tells her reader: “People can be heroes in astonishingly different ways” (127). She notes that Laura was a warrior who fought for her family. In contrast, Gildiner describes Peter as a hero because of his ability to forgive and accept what happened to him as God’s will. She argues that Alana was a hero simply because she survived so much abuse, but decided to go on living.

Gildiner describes Laura as being a hero because she was victimized, but she chose never to be a victim. Gildiner notes that she admired Laura because “Even though she’d been fighting for many years, she got up every...