Under The Persimmon Tree Essay

“It made me wonder, though, what would have happened if Kate had been healthy. Chances are, I’d still be floating up in Heaven or wherever, waiting to be attached to a body to spend some time on Earth. Certainly, I would not be part of this family” (8). The novel, My Sister’s Keeper, is a story which follows a young girl through her life struggles as she tries to help her sister, enjoy her own life, and fight her mother for a right to her own body. Anna Fitzgerald, the main character of the novel, is being used as “body parts” to keep her sister Kate alive rather than being loved and appreciated for the person she truly is. Throughout the novel she sues her mother for the right to her own body, she develops as an individual away from her sister,

The book is organized in a topical manner. Which means that the chapters appear in collections of stories revolving around a specific topic, rather than in a chronological order. Some of these chapters revolve around her education, her siblings, and what happened after her interpreting session in the psychologist’s office. As mentioned before, she stopped interpreting. In fact, she stops doing much of anything as she contemplates her unhappy childhood. But soon after this event, her sister’s wedding is planned, and she is forced to confront her past at the wedding. She enjoys herself, but resents that she still needs to interpret for her parents.

The loss of somebody or someone can lead to PTSD, which can later lead to other effects, and it is said that up to 20% of all adults in America who have experienced some type of loss develops PTSD. (BS-1) Towards the beginning of the novel Under the Persimmon Tree, there is a character named Najmah who loses the ability to speak and loses control of her life, as a result of Mada-jan and Habib’s loss. (BS-2) As an effect of Baba-jan and Nur missing from her life, Najmah changes her mindset and the decisions she makes from then on. (BS-3) Najmah’s relationships with others and voice is altered, this happens once she meets Nusrat and she adjusts due to her losses. (TS) Throughout the novel Under the Persimmon Tree, we see a character named

(BS-3) The death of Nusrat’s husband, Faiz, made her fall to her lowest point, but enabled her to make the right decision and go back to her family in New York. (BS-2) The absence of Margaret from Nusrat’s life guides her on a journey to find Islam and Faiz. (BS-1) The death of Margaret caused negative changes in Nusrat’s life, but leads her to find positive things that give her life more meaning. (R) Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’

In chapters five and six Lamott shares how she comes to terms with her body image, her fear of cancer, and her addictions. She shares her frustration, irritation, and her incredible love for her mother. Lamott bestows wisdom in these pages when she talks about coming to terms with her father’s death and how she let go of the grief. She reveals her times of weakness when she battles her personal afflictions, and how she finds strength in her faith to overcome the enemy in her mind. She constantly works on her self-acceptance a little at a time.

“That Ray was not unhappy, he knew nothing of what was to come and so he did not suffer…he was happy in his lifetime, he loved his work, his domestic life, loved to garden…he did not suffer the loss of meaning that his survivor feels. Ray’s death was no tragedy but a completion” (Oates 241). This revelation was very powerful to me, as much as she is suffering depressed and having suicidal thoughts; she is able to start having moments of clarity. I saw this as a positive step in her healing. As she states “the widow must remember, her husband death did not happen to her but to her husband. I must stop dwelling upon the past, which can’t be altered” (Oates 228). She reminds herself that “you have your writing, your friends and your students” (Oates 264) and this gives me a sense of hope for her. I am eager to proceed with reading the last section of this book and knowing the outcome of this memoir; that I have enjoyed

(AGG)Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “only in the darkness can you see the stars.” with this, Nusrat relates because the stars shined brighter in the darkness of Faiz’s death. (BS-1)In the book, Under The Persimmon Tree, Nusrats’ loved ones are related to the stars in her mind because she has a basic connection with the stars. (BS-2) Additionally, when Nusrat realizes Faiz is dead, the author uses stars to symbolize her loss of faith. (BS-3)Similarly, the author uses Nusrat’s connection to the stars to symbolize her loss of faith when she accepts Faiz is dead. (TS)Furthermore, at critical moments in Nusrat’s life, the author uses Nusrats’ connection with the stars to highlight how she loses faith.

(AGG)Dr. Martin Luther King once said, “Only in the darkness can you see the stars. ”(“Top 20”) with this, Nusrat can relate, because the stars shone brighter in the darkness of Faiz’s death. (BS-1)In the book, Under The Persimmon Tree, Nusrat’s loved ones correspond to the stars in her mind because she has a basic connection with the stars. (BS-2) Additionally, when Nusrat realizes Faiz is dead, the author uses stars to symbolize her loss of faith.

In the book Under The Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Fisher Staples the education and quality of it is very different from the rest of the world. In Afghanistan the education is very poor especially for women. This the same in the book Under The Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Fisher Staples. The book Under The Persimmon Tree is about a family that has to go to a refugee camp with a struggling economy with huge amounts of families living there too and people getting killed by the Taliban. In the novel education is portrayed differently than it actually is in real life, because the Taliban does not support education they do not get much money from the government to support schools and education is a lot harder to continue.

A bildungsroman is a story showing the evolution of a character from an innocent childhood to a greater understanding of life that comes with adulthood. In Li-Young Lee’s poem, Persimmons, he tells the story of the speaker in an episodic manner to convey how the chapters of life are intertwined and the impact they all have on one another. This is a free verse poem and lends itself to the assumption of being autobiographical. It begins with the speaker in sixth grade being lectured by his teacher for not knowing the difference between “persimmon” and “precision.” It sharply transitions into discussing the art of eating a persimmon. The poem then flashes forward to a more mature memory where we are introduced to a euphemistic portrayal of

(AGG)In Afghanistan the people say that U.S. bombings and suicide bombers are “evil twins” and in the novel U.S. bombings, which are meant to root enemy positions, are characterized a evil and greatly affect the characters.(BS-1)The U.S. power to hit targets from the air greatly changes and affects nusrat in many ways. (BS-2)Because the U.S. caused the deaths of 2 of Najmah’s family members Najmah has a growing fear and affect deeply by the U.S.(BS-3)Finally the U.S. affect both Najmah and Nusrat due to airstrikes causing indirect, bombings near the characters or near their loved ones, and direct, deaths of family members, changes in the 2. (TS)The characters in the book “Under the Persimmon Tree” are greatly affected by the U.S. involvement and the author uses real life events to provoke conflicts and changes in how the two characters act and think.

From the novels “Under the Persimmon Tree” by Suzanne Fisher Staples, “Inside Out and Back Again” by Thanhha Lai and “A Long Walk to Water” by Linda Sue Park, the refugee child have to deal with traumatizing events occurring during their journey. First, Najmah is a teenager living in Kunduz, Afghanistan who had to flee to Peshawar, Pakistan to find her brother and father, who have been taken by the Taliban, Salva is an 11 year old boy who had to flee from his village in South Sudan who has set out to find his family and Ha, a ten year old girl who had to flee her home because the Communist will take over Saigon. Secondly, all of the refugees have to flee their homes because of their country being at war; the Taliban, the Sudanese Civil war

(AGG) Children in the middle east are losing family members because of all the war going on there, the kids are having to witness this and therefore are changed by the conflict and loss. (BS-1)In the story Under the Persimmon Tree, Najmah is changed by becoming more determined to find her father and brother after they were taken by the Taliban. (BS-2) Najmah is significantly changed after her father and brother are kidnapped by the Taliban. (BS-3) With the loss of all of her family members Najmah changes dramatically. (TS) Najmah in the story tragically loses all her family members this changes her character into someone she never thought she would be..

Grief is a commonality within each of our lives, as we are all forced to experience grief at some point in our lives. Grief is an interesting facet of human life as the loss of a loved one effects each individual in a different manor. Unfortunately for the grief stricken the process of overcoming loss is a very long and arduous experience. Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones explores the varying ways in which people process and further overcome the loss of a common loved one. The novel is focused upon the Salmon family, a family which is having difficulties overcoming the loss of beloved sister and daughter Susie Salmon. The novel relates the death and afterlife of the aforementioned 14 year old Susie Salmon, a girl who is raped and murdered brutally

The book contains the writing of the author, her sister, and her mother as they all share their story of how suicide has affected them.