Zeitoun Analysis

In the story “Araby” the protagonist is portrayed by the author to seem young, which limited his ability to see past his dull, dead-end neighborhood. The author explains the boy’s carefree mindset by describing how the protagonist and his friends would run through the back lanes of the houses and hide in the shadows when they reached the street again.

In his documentative account, Zeitoun, altruistic author Dave Eggers illustrates the experiences of one muslim man, Abdulrahman Zeitoun, and his struggle to respond to and cope with the trials facing society and nature following Hurricane Katrina. By describing the destructive flooding of his home and his neighborhood, Eggers establishes a desperate tone, as a race against time ensues to save what is left. As the physical landscape drastically changes, so do the very morals and establishments that hold society together. Eggers utilizes several rhetorical strategies to highlight the cruel and destructive stigmatization of Muslim Americans in a post 9-11 society, and that in times of calm or chaos, the common man is the same despite the labels

Amir’s mother, Sofia, dies in childbirth; Amir inherits her love of literature and probably her looks to some extent, but, her being dead, never receives any motherly love or guidance, which could have helped him out of the cowardly hole he later digs himself into. Amir’s father’s best friend and business partner, Rahim Khan, tries to give Amir the motherly love he clearly needs, fostering Amir’s love of writing and steadfastly standing up for him when Amir’s father, Baba, criticizes him, but Rahim Khan does not do enough to instill honesty, courage, and strength of conviction in young Amir. Amir’s best friend, Hassan, a servant a year younger than Amir, is everything Amir is not: athletic, brave, loyal, honest, and kind, inciting jealousy in Amir. Assef, a local bully, poses a real threat to Amir, hating Amir for the crime of befriending a Hazara (oppressed ethnic minority), but Amir is protected by Hassan, allowing young Amir to freeze and not stand up for himself in Assef’s presence. Last, but most importantly, is Amir’s father, Baba, and his views on Amir: he blames Amir for Sofia’s death,

He finds a lifelong friend at school, Harun, and together they roam the streets of the city, looking for adventure. Hasan accompanies his uncle on his first tactful mission, and as their caravan roam the huge Sahara, his uncle fills in the historic gaps for young Hasan, teaching him the art of storytelling.

Dave Eggers is the author of many common read books. One of his known reads is a true story titled Zeitoun, about a Syrian-American living in New Orleans, Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina. Eggers uses many strategies throughout this story to involve the audience and get a sense of how people lived through Hurricane Katrina. Consequently, he narrowed into one particular family’s tribulations, and that family happened to be the Zeitouns. Many times throughout the book, Zeitoun, Eggers exhibits the rhetorical appeals; ethos, logos, and pathos in order to support his argument.

Returning to Zitkala-Sa, we can see how her work strongly contests Turner’s ideas about what it means to be “evolved.” At home in the west, Zitkala-Sa and her family and friends had well-established, respected customs for everything: food collection, meal preparation, hairstyles, fashion, crafting, storytelling, religion, and more. Without recognizing this point we risk falling into the same mindset as Turner, in believing that Indian culture was primitive at best and nonexistent at worst. Conversely, at boarding school, Zitkala-Sa and her fellow Native American peers are forced to learn a new language, cut their hair short, wear “immodest” clothes, and indoctrinate themselves into Christianity, among other things. In Turner’s eyes, this may seem like the natural course of action in the “procession of civilization” (32), but to Zitkala-Sa, these experiences left her feeling like a “mummy,” chained up prior to her “burial” (Zitkala-Sa 97.) She states that it was “inbred in [her] to suffer in silence” at the hands of the “civilizing machine” (96), and remarks that she often “wept in secret, wishing [she] had gone West, to be nourished by [her] mother’s love, instead of remaining

Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun is a story about a Muslim family in New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. It follows mainly Abdulrahman, whom people call Zeitoun, and Kathy Zeitoun, his wife. Eggers follows this family though the dangerous storm and shows the aftermath of what happened physically and mentally. The story is built through personal accounts and the bias that is built through these stories. Eggers controls the narrative and what readers should feel and sets the reader up for a story controlled by him, the author.

Zeitoun, a novel by Dave Eggers, is a true story about a family who struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Everyone seems to think the kind of hardship you’ve been thru describes your character. But in reality, it is what you do with that hardship that really shows it. In Margaret Peterson Haddix’s “Running out of time” a young girl, by the name of Jessie, has to leave her village in order to help everyone. She leaves because she has to go get medicine and has to stop her friends from dying. This was her hardship and she chose to deal with it by helping out.

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

In the novel, Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, the protagonist, Amir, is torn between two truths as he lived associated with different kinds of religious groups in Afghan society: Pashtuns and Hazaras. Each identity played a unique part in Amir’s life. Whether they had a positive or negative effect, both changed his values and beliefs. Individuals also shaped Amir’s character. Baba, Assef, and Hassan were major influences upon Amir’s growth throughout the book; their differences shaped Amir into the man he later became as all three represented a different side of Afghan society.

Forster frames the audience perception of Amir through the character foil of Hassan juxtaposing his willingness to serve Amir, made apparent in the hyperbolic statement “for you a thousand times over”, and his refusal to give up the kite he ran for Amir, though threatened with injury, to Amir’s inaction as Hassan is brutally sodomised by the three teenagers. The racial hatred of Hassan’s Hazara heritage is used as justification for their actions, the metaphorical images and rhetorical questions underpinning this, “why does he only play with you when no-one else is around” positioning the viewer to question Amir’s values. However Forster foregrounds Amir’s growth, using time shifts and Rahim Khan as a moral voice as he challenges Amir that “there is a way to be good again”, Amir’s decision to return to Afghanistan to save Hassan’s son Sohrab representative of this. Forster frames Amir’s realisation “I feel like a tourist in my own country” through th montage of shots of the desolate countryside and devastated buildings, his assertion “I don’t want to forget anymore” underpinning his realisation that to move forward and fully develop his identity he must first reconcile his past.

The story “Araby” as told by James Joyce is about a young boy that is fascinated with the girl across the street. But deeper down the story is about a very lonely boy lusting for her love and affection. Throughout the story, we see how the frustration of first love, isolation and high expectations breaks the main character emotionally and physically. James Joyce uses the first-person viewpoint to tell this story which helps influence the plot, characterization, themes, and understanding of the main character.

In any novel or story, it is essential that the audience understand the characters to be able to develop a connection and relate to them. In the novel Wild Thorns by Sahar Khalifeh, the author uses many literary devices to distinguish between two cousins, Usama and Adil during the 1960s when Israel occupied Palestine. The cousins, “experience two different versions of occupation and they have chosen to respond to the complexities of their situations through different means” (“Representations of Identity in Three Modern Arabic Novels”, 2011). The author characterizes the characters through their actions, speeches, thoughts and finally what other people think of them. Usama is a man of action, while Adil is a man of thought. They both have many differences and rarely any similarities, but one thing their actions differentiate mostly is their belief of, “What exactly is a man.” They have both been through different things, and they possess different characteristics, but they both end up in the same path due to kinship and place of origin. Khalifeh uses euphemism, foreshadowing, and situational irony to contrast the characters Usama and Adil through different aspects such as actions, thoughts, and speeches.

Danny Boyle's film, Slumdog Millionaire, follows the story of two young brothers as they face the trials of a life of poverty in Mumbai, leading them down dramatically different paths. The elder brother, Salim’s relationships with several corrupt figures, Maman and Javed, develops him into a man of evil. The use of an array of visual and oral language features presents Salim's change in character throughout the text.