Zeitoun, by Dave Eggers, tells the story of a Syrian-American father with an intense drive to fill in his brother's footsteps. Using his family's wellbeing as his motivation, this drive eventually leads him into a lot of trouble. Zeitoun is a tragic hero.…
Device Quote Function Imagery/Simile/Hyperbole “Where Tjaden puts it all is a mystery, for he is and always will be as thin as a rake.” When the author compares Tjaden to a rake, it makes the readers realize how thin he really is. This quote makes the reader imagine a rake and how it relates to the character. Conflict (external; man vs. man) “Eighty men can’t have what is meant for a hundred and fifty... I don’t care about the stew, but I can only issue rations for eighty men.”…
Like many other immigrants in the U.S. at the time they were taken advantage of because of their lack of education and understanding of the English language, and their desperate need of money. In addition to working in harsh conditions, they experienced death in the family, rape, and eviction. It almost seemed too much for one person/family to go through but the main point of the book was to expose capitalism at its worst. Depicting the worst of the worst was what made such a big impact on people because they could “see it” instead of just reading it.…
In the memoir, The Horizontal World written by Debra Marquart, she describes growing up in the Midwest region. By using literary devices, she tells the readers about her profound love for the area, even though it may seem to the blind eye as a boring and lonely place to visit. Literary devices such as allusions and charged diction suggest that the Midwest has a unique beauty that not everyone notices, or bothers to notice. By using these literary devices, Marquart is able to convince her readers of the beauty of the Midwest.…
The book of Zeitoun is like none other that I have read before. Through this captivating story, the characters are faced with so many challenges with the coming of Hurricane Katrina, prejudices, and losing everything that you’ve come to know and love. Every day Zeitoun is faced with problems due to being part of a culture that is often looked down upon and discriminated. Three cultural differences that he encountered were getting rejected from clients because of his name, accused of being a terrorist, and his religious beliefs.…
Both Tobar and Viremontes depict LA as a city where characters are able to make an identity for themselves as well as being excluded and provoked by the city which allows it to transpire. In the beginning of the novel, Antonio said that he lived securely with his Spanish in LA: “He never felt held down to learn English.” (Tobar, 3). Additionally, a Spanish community was molded and it held an impact on the city. In Tobar’s novel, we can see after Antonio and Jose Juan are evicted, they find a lot of tents and shelters in the middle of the city: “Voices in the igloo-shaped tent now, people speaking in Spanish, English, men with central accents.” (Tobar, 13). This is a universal backdrop portrayal in East Los Angeles.…
Ha's family decides to flee from their home because of the fear their mom faces in the war. She is afraid of soldiers bringing danger to her family. Ha’s mother decides to flee and now her family becomes refugees. Now Ha and her brothers must go through the unhappiness and struggles that many refugees face.…
There are instances when imaginary stories are more powerful than those that actually happened. The fictional reality present in O'Brien's The Things They Carried adds more realism to his writing than any amount of actual details every could. Even though the stories recounted in the book didn't physically happen, they still hold as true as any actual war story. Furthermore, many of the characters and experiences found in these stories have been created from composites of real people and places. Essentially, the stories are first-hand accounts of things that never happened. Tim O'Brien uses this fictional world to negate death, to emphasize meaningful events and character traits, and to enrich the stories with feelings as oppose to factual details.…
Toni Morrison and William Faulkner are two of America’s most successful writers who seem to share many similar themes and motifs, Especially between Morrison’s Beloved and Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying. Both of these novels use multiple narrators, present their characters with struggles of their own identity, and show the difficulties of the people born into the lowest social class.…
The novel follows a high school student named Daniel as he researches Residential Schools for a school assignment. His friend introduces him to her grandmother, Betsy, a Residential Schools survivor. During the interview, Betsy shares about her experiences being kicked out of the house by her mother, a Residential School survivor struggling to cope with the years of trauma. She is cared for by a loving family, but is soon forced to go to Residential School. Betsy was made to feel inferior and she had her culture stripped away (Neegan, 2007, 7). She tells Daniel and her granddaughter of her experiences of physical and emotional abuse and trauma as well as how she found…
The novel, A Lesson before Dying, was written by Ernest J. Gaines in 1993. Gaines was born on the River Lake plantation in Louisiana, where he was raised by his aunt, Miss Augusteen Jefferson. Racism was prevalent shown by the whites-only libraries in Louisiana. After 15 years of living in Louisiana, Gaines moved to California, although he states Louisiana never left him. California had libraries available for the blacks also. In California, he lived with his mother and which inspired him to the point of writing about six novels and scores of short stories. In 1953, Gaines was drafted into the Army, and he later went on to study creative writing at Stanford University. While in the library, Gaines…
In Dave Egger’s New York Times best seller, Zeitoun, he writes about a Muslim man named Abdulrahman Zeitoun who stays behind during Hurricane Katrina and canoes around to help people that are trapped in their house and helps them get to safety and he feeds helpless dogs that are starving. Zeitoun is portrayed as a heroic family figure in the book. He is a kind man and acted selflessly whenever he had to do things. For example, he gave the limited food that he had to save the starving dogs and each day he went back. However in 2012, the world was shocked to find that Abdulrahman Zeitoun was convicted of domestic violence and other hateful crimes. There is now a big controversy at Mills High School, and teachers are debating whether or not students…
Valor is often seen as an upside to someone’s personality, but when very brave, it mistakenly leads to being brave in situations where the dispute is unfavorable. Excessive bravery leads to careless or unneeded acts, times when doing something is insane. Having too much courage results in recklessness. Courage takes over rationality, the outcome being unwise choices, which leads to consequences. In both passages the qualities of bravery leads to unnecessary risks.…
Zora Neal Hurston's writing style clearly displays the experiences of her childhood. Both her diction and manipulation of point of view allow the reader to gain a deepened understanding of her life as a youth.…
No Intro + No Conclusion Verisimilitude- in literature, the resemblance of fiction to the truth or reality Analogy- a comparison between two things. GOES WITH RELEVANT VOCABULARY…….…