In the poem, Tabrizi uses the expression “A Thousand Splendid Suns” to illustrate the beauty of Afghanistan by personifying as a beautiful woman. It is therefore it is ironic that a novel that depicts the destruction of Afghanistan’s culture and the power structure, as in how much they value men to women. In the poem, it says, “May Allah protect such beauty from the evil eye of man!” This along with the concept of female endurance and survival from her own country shows just how corrupt the Afghanistan culture has become from then to now. The title highlights the tragedy of what happen to Afghanistan by making us remember precedent of what happens in the novel. Like the visit to the giant Buddha statues before their…
In “Total Eclipse,” by Annie Dillard, Dillard contrasts the emerging ring of light around the sun to an old silver wedding band or a morsel of bone in order to juxtapose the different feelings the eclipse raises as well as portray the lasting impression the total eclipse had on people. A worn wedding band insinuates the notion of the eclipse’s beauty and excitement in suspense of it, just as a marriage; moreover, a marriage lasts forever much like the imprinting the eclipse leaves on people. Dillard, for example, become attached to it and recounts it as lingering in her memory forever; so much so that she could write about it two years later in exceptional detail. Dillard belies the wedding band with a morsel of a bone, which serves as a symbol…
Upon reading the piece for the first time, I did not understand what was going on. After a couple of days later, I think I get it, but I kind of understood only the first half which is enough. After reading a piece from Desert Notes by Barry Lopez, the message Mr. Lopez is trying to convey is to tell the reader to not to form conceptions, beliefs or ideas of something before actually knowing about it. This nicely fits the theme of preconception. In the beginning, you have the idea of something.…
Forge is Laurie Halse Anderson’s second installment to the Chains series following up her previous novel, Chains. The escapades of the young African American slaves, Isabel and Curzon, continue in this sequel to Chains. Young Curzon and Isabel are forced to endure the hardships of maturing during the demanding time of the American Revolution. Curzon and Isabel are runaway slaves who have a high risk of getting captured with their past catching up to them every step of the way. Forge is told from the perspective of Curzon in a journal-like fashion, each entry has a date. Laurie Halse Anderson had a team of researchers gather an immense amount of information on the American Revolution and the time period to make her Historical Fiction novel as realistic as possible. By making Forge’s novel structure journal entries from Curzon’s angle, Anderson was adept in making the reader connect, investigate, and comprehend his character and the American Revolution further.…
Some of the beliefs held by the villagers regarding the native peoples (a.k.a. savages) were that they were strange and hideous giants that lived in the dark forests of the interior and who painted themselves red (this was said by the fishermen and their wives). Others said that the rocks they made the paint from turned their skin red and could never be washed off. Still others say that there was cannibalism and murder among them, though this was only half believed by the villagers. There were also the few who believed that the native peoples did not dare to approach the villagers because they feared the guns and dogs.…
This graphic novel was a very interesting and unique take on history and on how it’s traditionally told. The story is based on a young African slave girl, named Abina Mansah, in the nineteenth century. Most of the events that occur in the book take place in West Africa and more specifically in the Gold Coast Colony. It’s based on the real-life event of Abina’s trial against Quamina Eddo, who was a powerful and wealthy man. She believed that she was wrongfully enslaved. She wanted her voice to be heard and decided that she would take this man to court. The only problem with this was that he grew palm oil, which at the time was vital component of Britain’s growing industrial production. Therefore, bringing him to court was a big deal. They were walking a very fine line in doing so, but in the same token they had to honor the new laws that they passed abolishing slavery. None the less, William Melton, the acting judicial assessor, decided to give the girl a shot in court to prove Eddo guilty of wrongfully enslaving her.…
This book tells about a young West African woman prosecuted his second master to enslave her in 1876. Abina Mansah was a West African woman living in the British Gold Coast Colony. She cannot tolerate her master enslave her because it is in contravention of the "Gold Coast Slave-dealing Abolition Ordinance, 1874". So she escaping to the town of Cape Coast, she accuses Quamina Eddoo who was her master of purchasing and holding her as a slave. At this time, she met William Melton who was British magistrate. The William Melton decided to take the case to trial. Also she met a rich man and the man sympathize her in that time. Although ultimately unsuccessful in her lawsuit, she was a very intrepid character as an African woman. She forced a group of important men to hear her for her story, and they will learn her perspective to be enslaved. Historians recover her story as many photos and they put into the novel. So the reader can fell more emotion and expression more at the photos when the reader read the book. The author Trevor R. Getz and illustrator Liz Clarke are combining educational storytelling and meticulous historical research in the novel. So as the author created, it’s called graphic novel which is a graphic history. As I think of her story, although she is not win the case of the enslavement. She expresses her emotion and her experience for all the reader not only for me. She was a brave and mighty African woman, because in the year of 1874, the British law didn’t allow slave trade. The character presented her powerful psychological dynamics. So the Getz and Clarke include many of the graphic story and the prime documents for creative the rendition of facts. The author was using different parts to express the story. As the first part, they explained her experience and emotion. Also they told her background and the storyboard at the beginning…
Do you know where the author got her inspiration for the book? How her personal experiences and the historical context influence her writing?…
Fifteen-year-old Amari loves life in her home village in Africa. She spends her days strolling along the stream, daydreaming about her handsome future husband, teasing her little brother, and avoiding chores. But everything changes the day the pale-faced visitors arrive.…
The novel consists of letters written by the main protagonist, Celie, that she has written to God. Celie is a poor black girl living in the American South. She writes letters to God because the man she believes to be her father, Alphonso, abuses and rapes her. Alphonso has already impregnated Celie once,…
Harriet Jacobs provides a firsthand narrative on the issue of slavery and the injustices associated with the actions made by the men and women who owned slaves. Within the first few pages of her retelling appropriately named “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” the reader is made aware of the long and troublesome plight that Jacobs is made to endure because of the color of her skin. The troubles brought to light by her writing address how being a female slave is particularly more taxing than being a man and how the slave holders respond to any type of resistance.…
In this book, it explains the distress and grief these slaves had to face in their everyday lives. There is ten slaves and each of them wrote their own story about what they had to face each and everyday. For example, one of the slaves is Frederick Douglass. He was the most famous African American of the nineteenth century. This book, sets back into the eighteen hundreds and kids at eight years old would be taken away from their loved ones and were put to work like cattle by their new possessor. For example, Frederick Douglas at the age of eight was taken from his mother without even saying goodbye. Douglas had to call his new controller Aunt Kathy or he would get a flogging. He explains the misery he had to sustain and how many times he was beaten or punished to starve. For example, he wrote about his new owner Kathy, “The cheerful eye, under the influence of slavery, soon became red with rage; the voice, made all of sweet accord changed to one harsh and horrid discord; and that angelic face gave place to that of a demon”. (Taylor, 2005, p. 58). Each slave at the end of their story explains their after life. Growing Up In Slavery makes you think of life in other people’s shoes and how it would make you feel if you were them.…
Often times a person’s wishes do not match up with what fate has in store for them. In the novel A Thousand Splendid Suns, one witnesses the trials and tribulations of two women morphed by circumstance and war. Khaled Hosseini expertly illustrates what it means to search for justice that both Mariam and, specifically, Laila try to do as women in Afghanistan during a time of war. Through the deaths of loved ones and an abusive marriage, Laila comes to realize that she does not always have to rely on herself in order to live by the moral standards and justices she swears by.…
Inkheart was written by Cornelia Funke. It takes place in the medieval time period, located in Italy. Inkheart is an enchanting fantasy tale about a girl named Meggie. Meggie is twelve years old and lives in Italy with her father, Mortimer, but she calls him Mo. Mo is a bookbinder which means whatever he reads comes to life. When Meggie has nightmares she reads in her father’s room. Nothing allows her to fall asleep better than a book and Mo’s soft breathing. When she sleeps she swears she hears the books whispering to her. Mo has told Meggie the truth about everything or so she thinks.…
King of Shadows by Susan Cooper is a tale about a young boy's journey to overcome his devastating past in exchange for…
