Behind the Beautiful Forevers “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” by Katherine Boo is a wonderful novel about the trials many go through in the slums of modern India. This novel first introduces Abdul, a garbage sorter in the Mumbai slum of Annawadi. Abdul is hiding because he is afraid of being arrested for setting his neighbor Fatima on fire, despite the fact that he is innocent. The novel then skips backward to seven months before the burning. Another slum resident, Asha, dreams of being the first female slumlord of Annawadi, through whatever means necessary such as helping the Shiv Sena party. Asha sends her daughter, Manju, to college so that she will be able to improve their family’s situation. The conglomerate that owns the land on which Annawadi has been built is constantly threatening to demolish the slum …show more content…
Fatima engages in numerous extra-marital affairs to give herself a sense of self-worth. Abduls Mother, Zehrunisa, does not approve of her next-door neighbor Fatima. Abdul’s father, wants to one day moving his family out of Annawadi, but Zehrunisa would rather use their savings to improve their house. Zehrunisa wins, and Abdul tries to install shelves into the wall that the Husain house and Fatima’s house share. Fatima becomes upset and Zehrunisa and Fatima engage in a verbal altercation that ends in Karam ordering Abdul to beat Fatima, but Abdul refuses. Fatima sets herself on fire, and accuses the Husains of pushing her to burning herself, which is a criminal offense in India. Fatima is rushed to the hospital, while Karam, and eventually Abdul and his sister are arrested. Their time in the police station is full of beatings that only gets worse when Fatima dies. Zehrunisa bribes a police man into trying Abdul as a minor, so Abdul is sent to a juvenile detention center called Dongri. In July, Abdul, is released from Dongri until his
The three time Olympic athlete and inductee of the National Track and Field Hall of Fame, Gail Devers, once expressed, “Sometimes we fall, sometimes we stumble, but we can’t stay down. We can’t allow life to beat us down. Everything happens for a reason, and builds character in us, and it tells us what we are about and how strong we really are when we didn’t think we could be that strong.” In Laura Hillenbrand’s nonfiction book Unbroken, Louie Zamperini conveyed Devers’ words when, through even his darkest hours, he remained invariably perseverant, while withstanding the utmost, cruelest predicaments.
The biography, Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is about the life of Louis (Louie) Zamperini, a POW surviver during World War 2. The book has a multitude of heroes. Some demonstrate heroism throughout the book, while others evolve into heroes towards the end. Then there is this hero who puts his life in danger to save people he doesn't even know—Louis, our protagonist. He sacrifices himself to save others continuously.
The author Laura Hillenbrand is an American author that wrote two best selling books Seabiscuit- An American Legend and Unbroken, the novel that I am reporting on. This author had chronic fatigue syndrome that she battled which forced her to drop out of college and through this experience, she became a writer. While criticized by family and friends for this, she marched on as a writer.
In her article "Out of Her Place: Anne Hutchinson and the Dislocation of Power in New World Politics" Cheryl Smith discusses how women of puritan New England were oppressed and controlled by gender roles. At a time where men were in power and women were controlled in an attempt to keep them from gaining any type of authority. Smith discusses Anne Hutchinson, a women on trial essentially for expressing her voice freely and forcefully. Hutchinson had over stepped her bounds as a women when she expressed religious beliefs different from those of the church leaders. Smith also discusses how some modern women still feel like women are not able to fully speak in public with authority and must make themselves seem small to keep from losing their sexual
Memories can express many emotional times and events in your life, but it’s terrifying when you can’t remember anything at all. In the novel Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf, the main character, Allie, goes through her life after a tragic accident where her boyfriend, Trip, drove off a cliff in his truck. Allie was found near the cliff but she has no memory of the accident. Allie is forced to return to her life before the accident with the exception of having Trip. Allie experienced some traumatic events that influenced changes in herself as well as some people, some being Trip’s death/the accident, having to go back to school, and having Blake there for her every step of the way. .
People say that a person’s past depicts their future. The good times can make a person optimistic in future times of worry or sadness. The bad times can make a person stronger or grateful of what they have no matter how little in future bad times. This can be seen by Louie Zamperini in the novel Unbroken. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, follows the life of Louie Zamperini during his career as an olympic runner and also as a prisoner of war during World War II.
In Peggy Orenstein’s book, she effectively argues that a princess-like society immersed in America's culture is damaging to young girls through her interviews, evidence, personal experience, and humorous tone. Starting towards the beginning of her book, Orenstein exposes to the audience that she too liked Disney. She says that "God knows I was a Disney kid. I still have my bona fide mouse ears" (Orenstein 13). By doing this, Orenstein conveys her knowledge of the two sides of her argument: Disney is damaging to young kids or vice versa.
Abdul is arguably one of the hardest workers in Annawadi, working from sunrise to the sunset. Since his father is unable to work due to poor health conditions, Abdul supports his family of eleven. For Abdul, working hard is enough to get ahead in their life. He dislikes buying trash from the road boys because it's stolen. Seeing how Abdul act throughout the whole story lets me see that not everyone is Annawadi is selfish.
Coming of Age in Mississippi is the story of a young African American girl’s life during a major time of racial conflict in America. Anne Moody fights the power of segregation through her adolescent years and documents her childhood in a very descriptive way. However, by the end of the memoir Moody felt old and tired and was unable to join other activists who were singing, “We Shall Overcome.” The experiences early on in Moody’s life left her tired of fighting and irritated with the Civil Rights Movement and Moody was left skeptical of essential alteration in America. Moody was tired of fighting for civil rights because Moody’s struggles as a child eventually wore out her persistence, Moody began to lose her resiliency to keep pace when Emmitt
In the movie “The Loving Story”, the director Nancy Buirski presents a story about love and fight for the right of interracial marriage and social justice. In 1958, a white man whose name Richard Loving and his black fiancée Mildred Jeter travelled from Virginia to Washington to get married in a time when interracial marriage was illegal in most of the states in the United States including Virginia, according to the movie. However, the director shows that Mildred and Richard Loving were arrested in Virginia when they came back for violating a Virginia law that forbidden marriage between people of different races. Therefore, the couple had to leave Virginia so that they can live together with their children in Washington, D.C. A long way from
Shori is discriminated against by the Ina’s because of the color of her skin. Her point of view shows us how hurtful this is to her, but also how she overcomes this. Shori is a strong woman and leader, and defies female gender discrimination. The novel gives us a view of her quick thinking and impulsive actions through her narration. Additionally, Shori and her symbionts explore polygamy and homosexuality.
In the short story The Bride, written by Christina Granados, we are taken into Lily’s perspective. Lily describes her childhood with her sister, Rochelle, who has been planning her wedding since birth. To plan her wedding, Rochelle uses the “five- pound bride magazines” (Granados 502). She plans the songs, the food, the guests, as well as the dress from these magazines. Rochelle, throughout the story, never seems to accept any traditional Mexican- American wedding practices.
Reaction Paper Amy C. Steinbugler the author of Beyond Loving, examines interracial intimacy in the beginning of the twenty-first century and it has continued to developed new ideologies. Segregation, slavery, court cases, black lives matter and many other historical movements occurred decades ago and people were not allowed to form a relationship outside of their race, because of biracial which was looked upon as wrong. It became a phase of racial denials in which interracial relationships are seen as symbols of racial progress. This book examines the racial dynamics of everyday life of lesbian, gay heterosexual of black and white couples. Overall, this book analyzes cotemporary interracial through “racework”.
“Fatima is Fatima” is written by Ali Shariati and it has been translated by Laleh Bakhtiar. In his writing, Shariati develops the concept of social justice. Basically, Shariati begins with the social customs of the Arabian peninsula before the birth of Fatima and then she goes on to further compute the honors that Islam has granted upon women, especially upon Fatima. The treatise is all about the biography of Fatima.
“Women” by Louise Bogan Louise Bogan married her husband, Curt Alexander in 1916, and had a child a year later. In 1920, Curt Alexander died, causing Bogan to become a widow and left her with no reliable income and an adolescent to care for. After moving to New York City, later on, Bogan met other writers, this sparked her writing career. After writing multiple reviews for periodicals, she later wrote the poem “Women” (Louise Bogan). Throughout the course of this poem, Bogan uses metaphors, imagery, and the setting to show that women are seen as incapable of doing what men do.