The Sand Child Essay

Throughout both Nadia’s childhood and adulthood, external forces such as religion and a society unaccepting of women’s independence force her to grapple with cultural pre-conceptions and thus forge her own identity which grants her personal freedom. Hamid sets up the novel to provide a foil for Nadia’s

In The House of Sand and Fog, by Andre Dubus III, there are an infinite amount of possible outcomes when dreams collide, but overall not everybody can have his/her dreams fulfilled, unless there is a compromise to which all parties can agree upon, but only one can get what they came for, and the characters in the story do not come to this conclusion. This idea is expanded upon throughout the story of House and Sand and Fog when we get two people, Kathy Nicolo, and Colonel Behrani who have their dreams intertwine. They both do not ever come to a compromise that can satisfy the both of them, but instead it leads to nobody achieving their dream.

The illegitimate son of Baba and Amir’s half-brother (which he didn’t knew until after Hassan’s death), Hassan was a truly good and beautiful person even though he's had his fair share of hard times. In my opinion, Hassan has it tougher than Amir from the beginning. Not only did Hassan lose his mother (like Amir), his mother flat-out rejected him But Hassan, unlike Amir, is a selfless and joy-filled creature. They spent most their childhood together playing games, reading books and flying kites until that fateful day where he was deprived of his pride. Hassan had a very good relation with Baba as it would later prove out to be his father as well. After the war stricken years, Rahim Khan asked him to come back to the house in Kabul and agrees after thinking about it. He felt that he was near Amir by living in that house and that he’s loyal. His loyalty and integrity are the essence of his character. He and his wife were slaughtered by the Talibans in the earlier part of 2000, thus ending the life on an inspiring individual.

"The Discourse of the Veil" Ahmed examines Amin’s recommendations regarding women and formed part of his thesis and how/why he believed that unveiling was key to the social transformation, which is important for unraveling the significance of the debate that his book provoked (Ahmed, 145). Ahmed discusses the origins and history as an idea of the veil which informs Western colonial discourse and 20th century-Arabic debate have several implications. The first implication is the evident connection between the issue of culture of women, as well as between the cultures of other men and the oppression of women, which was created by Western discourse. The idea that improving the status of women resulting in abandoning native customs was

The one thing he would always remember Baba constantly telling him was, "A boy who won't stand up for himself becomes a man who can't stand up to anything”(Hosseini 22). This along with the guilt of what happened to Hassan follows Amir around throughout his life until he travels back to Peshawar to see Rahim Khan. During this visit, Amir is informed that Hassan and his wife were killed by the Taliban’ and now the son they loved very much was sent to an orphanage that eventually sold him to the Taliban's. Amir then embarks on an adventure to take back Sohrab, Hassan’s son, realizing he is not too old to stand up and fight for himself, in order to achieve redemption. On this journey, Amir discovers that the person who personally captured Sohrab was Assef. Upon trying to take back Sohrab Assef brutally attacks Amir, Amir doesn't try to fight back knowing he deserved

In one scene of the memoir, Allison describes her uncles and their need to be depicted as masculine and to act “hard” to the world around them. She also remembers her cousins as young boys and how quickly they seemed to turn into men. The time came for them to act as the world expected them to. This action shows how gender may oppress some males when they feel the pressures of the world to act a certain way. Otherwise, they are at risk for being seen as different and abnormal. Men who do not portray masculinity well are often seen as feminine and weak. When Allison describes her uncles she states, “If you didn’t look close, you might miss the sharp glint of pain in their eyes, the restless angry way they gave themselves up to fate,” (Allison, 28). These men already had their futures planned for them though the society and gender norms. Acting against these norms was seen as unusual, radical, and

Born as the youngest in her family, Laila grows to become a loving and compassionate parent who is willing to sacrifice for her children; despite having a negligent and unloving mother. Laila, even before her first baby was born, made the decision to marry Rasheed and purposefully had sex with him in order for it to appear like it was his baby. This protects the baby, Aziza, from Afghani society who would shun her for being birthed out of wedlock, and it also keeps the true father’s identity, Tariq, a secret. This sacrifice is one of many, Laila knows, to come as she thinks “[she] already saw the sacrifices a mother had to make. Virtue was only the first. She put a hand on her belly. Closed her eyes”(219). Another sacrifice Laila had to make was putting Aziza in a local orphanage in Kabul, due to the fact that Rasheed was earning so little money that they no longer had the ability to keep her healthily fed. She lived and ate there as well as being taught in a classroom, but in order for Laila to visit Aziza, she sometimes “was caught, questioned, scolded--two, three, even four times in a single day”(321) by the Taliban in an especially inhumane fashion. Over the course of their marriage, Laila withstood Rasheed’s

Through such actions of defiance and revolt, she manages to keep herself “free” from the social gender pressures imposed upon her. This girl feels imprisoned by her family, as she thrives on what is accepted as “a man’s job”. Furthermore, it is through her imagination that she is able to escape reality, inventing a “world that is recognizably [her] own”. She imagines “opportunities for courage, boldness and self-sacrifice,” where she can ride horses and save lives. This young girl’s ambitions and dreams to live a man’s life are impeded by her mother and grandmother’s protests to “act like a girl”.

Heart of Sand, written by Anne-Marie Oomen, takes readers on a journey to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore Park. Though the title may sound like it is talking about sand, the essay has a much deeper underlying meaning then that of just sand. The author, having visited the area, allows the readers to use all of their senses throughout the text to get a vivid detail image of the area. This detailed image that we as readers can see, allows us to make a deeper connection to the text and to go beyond the written meaning. It also offers us new ideas that can allow the readers to make even further connections and to keep going beyond the written meaning.

More specifically she calls attention to the relationship between Amir and his father and the relationship between Amir and Hassan. The article continues by explaining how ethnic identity also contributes to one’s masculinity and how others view them by stating, “It is not only the physical attributes but also his Pashtun identity which defines Baba as an assertive masculine figure” (42). Sarma writes

After learning that Amir had no interests in his own interests, Baba had simply given up on trying to immerse Amir in his world. Baba could hardly believe Amir was his child. “‘If I hadn’t seen the doctor pull him out of my wife with my own eyes, I’d never believe he’s my son’” (23). Consequently, when Amir had witnessed Hassan get raped, Amir locked away his emotions and let them affect him and his relationships negatively .

Amir’s misadventures begin as a boy living in an affluent Afghanistan world. On the day of his birth, his mother hemorrhages to death. Robbed of any feminine influence or comfort, he goes to his overshadowing Baba for love and acceptance. His father denies his only son the tenderness he desires, leading Amir to believe his father despises him. After all, Amir’s

Though they get married on short terms because of Baba’s sickness, she still plays a key role in the development of how Amir wants to live his life. (165) In the book Amir is asked over to Afghanistan by one of his fathers old friends to come and visit him, and his wife supports him and tells him to go. (203) This shows me that she is a very supportive person to Amir and that she has a large influence on the decisions she makes. When Amir found Sohrab and was told that there was no home for them to go to the woman graciously accepted a child into their home.

As a result to the inequality of women, in many instances it is easy for Rasheed to give up Aziza so he can live a better life. Women are expected to give up everything they have and know for men so they can live a happy life. This inequality against women leaves Aziza to grow with more difficulty as she does not have the same rights as her brother. As well as Rasheeds little to no connection with Aziza makes it easier for Rasheed to give her up. This quote provides us insight on Rasheed’s character as he is a sexist Afghan man but as well in a sense is foreshadowing the future. Rasheed treats Aziza as rubbish and it is only proven the future can only hold nothing better for Aziza. This passage also quite reminds me the book The Kite Runner, in that book as well women were shown as sacrifice and were shown less than men, Soraya and Sanubar were two of the main characters who faced injustice because of their gender. In conclusion, the injustice towards is not valid and throughout such novels women are shown struggling due to their

It was a sunny day so we decided to play outside. You were running and playing with Vaha and then you saw me and Jia Qi at the sandpit area. You came to me and told me to help you make a sand castle. I showed you how to do it and when you saw it, you wanted to do more so we put some sand into a castle bucket. It was heavy when it was full so I helped you turn it around so that it would stand. Before you pulled the castle bucket up, you tapped it three times and there we saw a nice sand castle. We did it many times because you were enjoying looking at them. When we saw that there was a lot already, I asked you to count them you were able to count all seven of them. Good counting Abi! It was fun playing with you and I’m looking forward to do