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Behind The Book Cover Of Sharbat Gula's

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In the National Geographic article, A Life Revealed, it describes the interesting story of the woman behind the infamous 1985 cover of one of the issues of a National Geographic magazine. Readers of that issue instantly locked into Sharbat Gula’s majestic eyes and felt sympathy for her. As the article further discusses, Gula’s life was ravished by wars in the Middle East. Some of the more prominent hardships were: her child dying in infancy, the bombings, all the times she was forced to move to a new refugee camp, and her not being able to spend winters with her husband due to asthma. The overall theme of the article is that Gula’s life was bullied by others choices, predominantly mens. The unfortunate life of Sharbat Gula parallels the life of the old woman in Voltaire’s novel, Candide. …show more content…

On the cover of National Geographic, Gula’s eyes pierce into the reader’s soul, creating a wondrous sense of mystery along with compassion. Gula’s facial expression, particularly her green eyes, tells an unfortunate story, which is her life, perfectly. The old woman spoke of herself, saying, “I had not always bleared eyes…” The reader is safe to assume that her eyes once were as mysterious and grand as Gula’s eyes once were. It’s implied that the turmoil and animosity that the old woman faced caused her eyes to turn from magnificence to dull. As seen in a recent picture of Gula, her eyes and facial expression don’t have the same emotional pull as they once did. Her facial expression, including her eyes, changed and now they don’t have the same emotional pull they once did, seventeen years ago. Presented with an above average amount of hardship and challenges, Gula was eventually rubbed down to the state seen in the picture. Her eyes turned from deep and wondrous to dull and bleak, just like the old woman. Both people faced a lot of adversity and tribulations that wore them down over

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