Through a blend of intellectual history, philosophical reading, and contemporary cultural analysis, Fruits of Sorrow explores the hidden dynamics at work when we try to make sense of suffering. Spelman examines the complex ways in which we try to redeem the pain we cause and witness.

She shows the way our responses are often more than they seem: how compassion can mask condescension; how identifying with others' pain often slips into illicit appropriation; how pity can reinforce the unequal relationship between those who cause and those who endure suffering.

Refections on Aristotle lead Spelman to a tour-de-force on why American slavery cannot be called an American "tragedy" without distracting from the real suffering of African Americans. Spelman links Plato's rejection of tragedy with Arlene Croce's much-talked-about refusal to review the recent Bill T. Jones dance about AIDS and other terminal illnesses.

She discusses current debates about "victimhood," racism on college campuses, nineteenth-century African-American writer Harriet Jacobs, the history of women's inhumanity toward other women as a necessary topic for feminist ethics, what it might mean to say that suffering is the human condition, and much more.