Comparing The Silence And The Roar

A Comparative Analysis of Two Countries
Dan Brown once said “Sometimes all it takes is a tiny shift of perspective to see something familiar in a whole new light.” In both The Corpse Washer, written by Sinan Antoon and The Silence and the Roar, written by Nihad Sirees, the reader is exposed to new perspectives of these two young men’s everyday lives. The protagonist in The Corpse Washer is Jawad, a young man who does not want to follow in the footsteps of his father and his father before him but instead pursue the art of sculpting. The Silence and the Roar follows a man by the name of Fathi Chin, a 31-year-old author who in many ways feeds off the hatred of his own government. Throughout both texts each protagonist faces the effects of war and the difficult obstacles their countries present.
In The Silence and The Roar Nihad Sirees never states the country’s name that

The president at the time was the infamous Saddam Hussein. Jawad was growing up surrounded by war in his country. His older brother Ammoury dying in battle and his father passing away peacefully while the echoes of bombs went off in the background. Unlike Fathi who’s country was on the brink of war Jawad grew up very much apart of war. His father was a corpse washer so Jawad saw first hand the effects war had with the number of corpses his father washed per day. Living in a country that is currently in war made activities difficult for Jawad. Activities such as commuting to the University he attends or even burying his father. In a powerful scene Jawad along with a few others in rout to bury his father adjacent to his brother are stopped by the American soldiers. “We got down on our knees. Two of them headed toward us, pointing their guns at our heads, and stopped about five meter away. One of them pointed to the coffin and shouted: “what’s on the car?”(Antoon