The Jungle By Mustafan Chapter Summaries

Raul Gonzalez
5/10/17
3rd block
Ms. Fowler
PART 1
The moors account uses a motif of Flight and Flying but more specifically freedom by escape, returning home, with largeness of spirit, but all for love. As the Narvaez expedition staggers from one disaster to another, Mustafa realizes that his desperate need for the expedition to find the gold is driven by his desire for freedom, which he painfully hopes that Durante’s, his owner, will return to him. Mustafa’s remedy for this hopeless desire is to tell the true story of the expedition, in his own words. After eight years of survival, Mustafa realizes that he will never be free unless he leaves Durante’s, and the corruption of white Spanish rule. His own understanding of his condition of slavery waxes and wanes as he sees and understands what the Spanish do to the Indians, and how the Indians accept or rebel against Spanish rule. While Mustafa is enslaved he is on a quest for truth and freedom. Mustafa wants to have
absolute freedom but not for himself but for his love to see his family.
A motif of symbolism is commonly used throughout The Moor’s Account. Gold is a symbol of the greed that the Castilian adventurers have, it is also a great symbol of wealth to them. They are willing to do anything to get even a few gold trinkets. This leads to them trying to conquer the Indian capital, even when they start to run out of supplies and get hunted by the Indians. By Narvaez, the governor, insisting on going forward, even when it means losing track of the supply ships to get the gold Laila Lalami uses symbolism to make us readers feel that Narvaez is selfish, and we also feel some hatred towards him. While Mustafa is enslaved he learns the destructive nature of greed and the real value of freedom. Laila Lalami leads us to conclude that us humans, always hope to be something greater and want more but you may not get is; greed. She does this by writing in Mustafa saying, “you always hope to see your seed to become a beautiful tree, with firm roots and branches that soar up in the sky. But it is a peculiar sowing, for you will never know whether your seed sprouts or dies.” Mustafa is the main character of the book and he suffers a great deal of irony.
He’s a Moor that is forced to sell himself into slavery to take care of his family. But before that, Mustafa had been a successful merchant, that sold and bought many slaves. When his city came under siege many lost their jobs, including Mustafa. Mustafa feels it was his greed as a merchant that led to him being forced to sell himself into slavery, since he had gotten so greedy he had sold slaves of his own. Mustafa cares greatly about his family and constantly thinks back to them and wishes for the freedom to return to his home. During Mustafa’s enslavement, he wished to regain his freedom and he states, “The world is not what I wished it to be, but I was alive.” Mustafa was always in search of gold and wealth but came up with nothing in the end. It is only till After he becomes a slave Mustafa realizes the evil consequences of a life devoted to the search of profit that sends the Spanish in search of nonexistent
gold.

PART 2
The Moors account is a stunning make of historical fiction, and Laila Lalami provides us with made up memories of a Moroccan slave we tried to set the official record, who is also the first black explorer of America. This is a very readable novel for its target audience, teen and up. This novel deserves to be read, and enjoyed, because its absorbing and it is a beautifully told story. This story is so unique because it is told in a perspective we rarely hear, that of a slave. Lalami sees the story as a form of moral and spiritual instruction that can lead to incomparability. “Maybe if our experiences, in all their glorious, magnificent colors, were somehow added up, they would lead us to the blinding light of truth.” And “the only thing at once more precious and more fragile than a true story,” she reminds us, “is a free life.” As this historical fiction unveils, Laila Lalami lets us to come to understand that contrary to popular belief, African American men played a significant part in the world exploration, and that Native American men and women were not just witnesses to it.
The main character of this book, Mustafa or also known as Estebanico, started off by selling slaves. He thought he had what he needed, but out of nowhere he lost it all. Mustafa sold himself into slavery, because he did not want his family to suffer or die of starvation. Estebanico remakes himself as an equal, a healer, and a remarkable storyteller. His tale illuminates the ways in which our narratives can transmigrate into history and how storytelling can offer a chance at redemption and survival. A character that is just as important as Mustafa would be governor Narvaez. Governor Narvaez was the leader of the Spanish expedition. He was a very greedy and pompous man. Narvaez was on a quest to find gold, and was determined to do anything to get it. The expedition travels through the land and disco overs the city of Apalache, but there is no gold to be found. He comes to the point where his greed grows to the point where he is willing and does in fact interrogate Indians for information. Governor Narvaez is a ruthless man by pushing his expedition onward with it being plagued with illness, it is lacking supplies and being attacked from the natives to find gold. Andrés Dorantes de Carranza was a Spanish explorer in America. He was one of the four last survivors of this Narváez expedition. He travels along with Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, Dorantes' slave Estevanico, and Alonso del Castillo Maldonado. These non-native explorers were the first to explore out of the United states. Senor Dorantes is the owner of Mustafa and the captain assigned to the expedition. As Dorantes slaves travel northward, they fight and argue with one another, they face resistance by indigenous tribes, and suffer from disease and starvation. Estebanico sees the idea behind Narvaez, the leader, and he captures the nature of being attracted to discovery and having ruthless greed. The barrier between master and slave grow thin and thinner throughout the book
The Moor’s Account style is shaped to resemble sixteenth-century travles. This text gives the impression of thinking the story is a part of history without making the book inaccessible to younger readers. Lalami does this by using words that were once used in the sixteenth-century, but are still in use today. She avoided reductions because they appear too modern. Lalami even lacks the use of quotation marks to resemble Arabic manuscripts of the sixteenth-century. In the first half of The Moors Account it switches in between two different stories. The first story of the Narváez expedition where Mustafa is a slave and in search of gold, and the second where others narrate Mustafa’s life previous to his arrival in the New World, where he was a successful merchant being able to provide for his family. Lalami has clearly researched American history very intensely but without allowing it to reduce her powerful imagination. Us readers are hooked as the expedition moves from disaster to disaster. It is series of amazing visual images.
Money is the center of all the evil in this book. The Moor’s Account is not only a good story, it’s an amazing one. It is rich, visual and topic hooking. This story is a thoughtful investigation into how we go about living and making decisions on our own lives. Lalami’s creates Estebanico in the book as a real living person, breathing, meanwhile, this gives him a chance at the afterlife which his fellow explorers thought they could defy. Sure, it’s just a story, but as Lalami tells us over and again in the account, there’s really no such thing as “just” a story. In the right hands, stories have extraordinary power: to comfort, support and transform.