Literary Analysis Of 'Wild Thorns' By Sahar Khalifeh

The essay States, by Edward Said, describes the trouble for Palestinians to find their identity due to the loss of their homeland. He also describes the situation of the Palestinians and the isolation that they feel through photographs that he had taken. Said has many different pictures throughout this essay and each of them play a part in supporting the main point of this essay. Said believes that, without a homeland, the Palestinians cannot have an identity and the Palestinians should not be content with being exiles forever. So the purpose of the pictures is to support and further strengthen this idea. The photographer wants the viewer to understand the struggle that the Palestinians are going through.

Israel and Palestine have been battling over territory, dominance, and political freedom for many years. After the Second World War, Israeli forces occupied Palestinian territory, ridding the land of Arabs. In response, the Palestinian people demanded control over their historic land, but the Israelis refused to relinquish power over the territory. In a matter of six days, the Jewish Israeli people conquered the West Bank all the way through to the Sinai Peninsula. After the war, the Israeli forces continued to take over Palestinian land by putting pressure on them to abandon their nation. Due to this ongoing conflict, Sahar Khalifeh utilizes violence and social constraints to explore the lives of Israeli and Palestinian men through vivid diction and descriptive imagery in the 1985 novel Wild Thorns.

Sadat’s controversial appeal to the Israeli’s, addresses the “huge wall between us,” as his perception of the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict incited him on a call to action to bring, in the alliteration “permanent peace” to the Middle East, perceiving that the conflict has gone on long enough culminating in great human costs on both sides. The metaphor of the “huge wall,” evocative of the tumultuous relationship between Arab’s and Israeli’s exemplifies Sadat’s need for the breakage of the “wall”, thus eliciting a level of Blitzer’s exigence so that the warring nations can move forward together, unified. However, despite advocating for a unified future he laments the injustices that have been inflicted on the Palestinian people and thus implores the Israeli’s through his utilisation of Aristotle’s pathos powered by highly modulated words, for the recognition of Palestine and its citizens to have “their legitimate rights…no longer ignored or denied today by anybody,” in order for peace to become an eventual reality. He enforces this sentiment in the hypophora “What is peace for Israel? It means that Israel lives with her Arab neighbours in security,” hence Sadat’s is able to expertly voice his universal plea for stability by challenging Arab and

Ever since, Palestinians have had to adapt to new places and cultures in order to survive, which makes it more difficult for them to preserve their own. Said presents several examples of transculturation throughout the essay. For instance, the use of the Mercedes, even though Said describes it in negative terms, the use of the Mercedes has come in handy for Palestinians. Enduring one disaster after another, Palestinian identity is arduous to preserve in exile. It is a struggle of having no country. Our country is a big part of who we are. As we are born, we are destined to become a part of it. It becomes part of our identity. Things that we grew up with meant something to us. We usually treasure things that became part of our lives. Even unconsciously, we take hold of it. Home brings us memories, memories that we want to hold on up to our last breath.

"Stick a label on it; Israel and Palestine." The Economist 14 Nov. 2015: 49(US). Religion

In order to understand the complexity of the problem as a whole, we must first understand what role each character plays. Friedman makes sure we understand where each character is coming from and what his or her ideology is toward the situation in the Middle East. Friedman’s biographical assessments of different leaders such as Yasir Arafat and Ariel Sharon give us a better perceptive of the main underlying reasons for the struggle. Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, had a very distinctive appeal about him. While he was neither physically attractive nor dashing in anyway, he had an appeal to the Palestinians that was not typical with everyday statesmen. Arafat can credit his political success to his great accomplishment and that is guiding the Palestinians “out of the deserts of obscurity into the land of “prime time.”” Arafat was a statesman for the people, he knows what the people are going through and he uses that down-to-earth quality to relate to the Palestinian people and gain their trust and support. On the other hand there is Ariel Sharon, a man that didn’t play with the enemy. The

Rottenberg examines the divide in this novel by referring to the divide as a “transfer” or “expulsion” and it is used as a divisive meaning because of the state’s refusal to recognize its Arab citizens. This criticism sheds light on the true identity of the conflict: “Let It Be Morning is a disturbing account of anti-Arab racism within is a disturbing account of anti-Arab racism within the Jewish mainstream, and of the deep divisions within Palestinian society” (Rottenberg 140). The statement that is made throughout Rottenberg’s criticism is about the disrespect that is shown to Arabs in Israel throughout the novel. She makes a bold point about the divisive meaning behind the conflict, but it is valid because of the lack of respect and the overwhelming hatred that Arabs like Sayed Kashua receive everyday in that

As Gibreel and Burnat walk alongside the barrier, the scenes of dead bodies and pools of blood leave Gibreel extremely unphased. Any toddler, seeing such devastation and horror would normally be shaken, however, for Gibreel this is nothing new. Being born in this conflict has impacted his life, it has hardened him at such a young age. Burnat wants his audience to see the horrific scenes that Palestinian youth encounter on a daily basis as a result of this conflict, something that I hope few children should ever be exposed to during their

Marcus, Itamar. "From nationalist battle to religious conflict." Palestinian Media Watch. Feb 2007(2007): 18. Web. 1 May 2016. .

At the beginning of the novel when the narrator is first introduced, an important link between her birth and the birth of Israel is drawn, as both she and the Palestinians are presented to the world at their most vulnerable. As Amal grows and develops, she reveals pieces of her experiences and the experiences of her predecessors that further intertwine her life with the lives of those who have been marginalized. As women with their bodies treated as territory to be colonized, their humanity becomes secondary to their ability to grant pleasure and bear children. In that same vein, the Palestinians are pushed from their land and into the margins of society as their human qualities are banished to the realm of the “other”. Although the curse ends with the birth of Amal’s son, the subjugation of the Palestinians has yet to meet

“The thorns aren’t there to produce roses, they’re there to protect them.” Wild thorns is a interesting story about a man of Palestinian descent and his interactions with the Jews living in Palestine. This story about a man named Usama is an intriguing look at how the Palestinian people interacted with the Jews who were in governmental control of the region in which the story takes place. This story also shows the growing contentious relationships that were growing between the Palestinian muslims and Israeli Jews during the mid-twentieth century. Even though some thought the muslim citizens had brought it upon themselves,

Samih Farsoun started his chapter in analyzing the situation of the Palestinian displacement in 1948-1993, "the destruction of Palestinian society, and the displacement of Palestinians and their spread in the horizons and their physical attachment, “in order to realize the dream of the Zionist leaders to establish" Jewish Israel Exclusively.

Amal Amireh is a Palestinian-American who migrated from Palestine when she was young. Her parents were both Palestinians, but her dad left in the 1950’s to go to America to earn his citizenship, but he left Amal, her mother, and her brothers in Palestine. Her father would come and visit her time to time. Her family lived in a town in the West Bank. Amal felt when living in Palestine that she was “in prison” always being occupied and not feeling that her life is normal. Amal grew up with the feeling of Israeli occupation, always watching and keeping them under control. She felt that she had a lack of national rights as a Palestinian and was always there when she was growing up. The issue between the Arabs and Jewish she feels is a “national conflict” with two groups.

Yizhar’s Khirbet Khizeh is a very interesting novella because it gives the reader a look into the the exodus of the Palestinians to be able to make way for the new Jewish state. Even though the events that take place in this novella are not real, they still reflect what occurred during the founding of Israel. This text is also written in first person and on a very personal scale. Throughout the text, the reader is able to witness how the narrator is completely haunted by his own actions. Furthermore, it is interesting how the rest of the soldiers do not seem to feel this way. For instance, they sometimes refer to Palestinians as “animals”. The importance of this is how powerful Zionist ideals can be. Zionism puts a great deal of importance

The graphic novel Palestine, published by Maltan journalist Joe Sacco in the early ‘90s, is a journalistic piece that represents his recollections of two months spent talking to and living with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. The casual narrative style, which some might say is too shallow for such heavy subject matter, in fact allows Sacco to avoid many of the pit falls that have made Western reporting on non-Western conflicts unhelpful at the very least and more often incredibly damaging.