This photograph describes what Haiti looks like for miles. Destruction and devastation. The lost, worried family and the remains of the hurricane are the most prominent elements of this photograph. When looking at this picture the eye is drawn the the dirty, young girl. She expresses sadness and concern.
In today’s ultra-polarized world it's common for people to see something only through one point of view, skewing their opinion. This phenomenon is often referred to as a “single story”; a term popularized by a prominent Nigerian author in her TedED talk titled “Dangers of a Single Story.” Reflecting this theme author, Edwidge Danticat's novel “Krik? Krak!” describes several different short stories surrounding the setting of Haiti. Many people think of Haiti as a war-torn country with mass suffering. Danticat although acknowledging this in her novel she writes about the good.
Hope motivates many characters in the book A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini but it motivates Mariam the most. For example, when Bibi jo had brought news of Jalil daughters going to a real school, Mariam got caught up in the idea of going to school as the author states “Since then, thoughts of classrooms and teachers had rattled around Mariam 's head, images of notebooks with lined pages, columns of numbers, and pens that made dark, heavy marks.” ( Hosseini 17). This demonstrates how Mariam motivates herself in hope for going to a real school. Instead of getting frustrated and down that Jalil’s other daughters were going to school, Mariam takes the idea that girls her age are going to school and turns it into hope.
When it comes to being a tyrant and having so much trauma, the story “Drown” speaks to many who are both suffering from a tyrant and trauma. The characters in the story suffer a lot because they have to endure. The setting of the book is taken place in the Dominican Republic where many live in poverty. Yunior, is a character that suffers from being in a trauma his whole life. The trauma begins when Yunior was 4 years old and his father leaves him and his family.
When darkness consumes you and the pain becomes unbearable, you look to the light, to perseverance to guide you through the nightmare you face. In Ruta Sepetys’ Salt to the Sea, one of the protagonists, Emilia, faces a myriad of emotional and physical hardships throughout the novel. With calamitous tragedies and bone-chilling circumstances, what does Emilia do? Bruised and battered, she perseveres through her hardships, showing how much a person can endure when they persist. Sepetys takes the consequences of Emilia’s pain and emotional damage to new heights with her war-themed novel; as a result of this, perseverance is articulated amongst many other traits that this character possesses, showing how imperative of a quality it is.
KRIK? KRAK! “When Haitians tell a story, they say “Krik?” and the eager listeners answer “Krak!”These collections of short stories in the book Krik Krak tell the lives of people living in Haiti. Their life stories will outrage, sadden, and take the reader with its sheer beauty.
Hope is always needed in dark situations to help you surpass the suffering. This is true in most cases where death may lie. In the book Fever 1793, by Laurie Halse Anderson, the Author shows just what a grim disease my do to you, your loved ones, and everyone else on this planet. In the book, a 13 year old girl, Marie, Lives a normal life in Philadelphia until the day comes during the summer of 1793 were the fever strikes it's first few victims. She is forced to try and survive not only the sickness but the people, and places around her.
Even though there is a possibility this may not happen she still holds onto hope. She holds on to hope, telling herself that things will get better in the future,
Krak! is a collection of short stories written by Edwidge Danticat, who uses the symbol of water to illustrate the ideas that we can’t assume that Haitian experience is always negative. The Haitian people find refuge in water. Danticat demonstrates this in “Children of the Sea”, where the boyfriend boards a boat away from Haiti. As he writes in his journal, it becomes apparent that he will not survive due to the boat slowly sinking into the abyss that is the sea.
They connected through their faith and turned it into hope. After the Haitian earthquake, “...members from all three communities had expressed a great deal of ‘faith’ in ‘God,’ and had stressed the importance of faith and spirituality in their ability to continue to live day by day, even with recurrent aftershocks, six months after the earthquake, ‘because we did not die in the earthquake’” (Rahill 594). This quote shows that their faith held strong because they did not die in the earthquake exemplifying their resilience. It increased their ability to endure and unite together as a community.
The poem “Sea of Faith” is about “freshmen” students and professor. Furthermore, it alludes to the professor’s deep thoughts on a “dumb” question about “Sea of Faith.” ‘A young woman” asks about the realism of the “Sea of Faith,” and this makes John Brehm question the intelligence of the “freshmen” students (line 8). He is shocked and confused how little that “freshman” knows. In the real world, professors encourage students to ask questions since there is no such thing like “a stupid” question, although, for the fact, only professors know how ridiculous student’s queries can be.
The central problems of his life come from his inability to communicate with his family and his lack of self-disclosure. Dan’s concerns with the relationships that he creates and the others he attempts to rekindle can be explained with one simple theory: Relational Dialect Theory, which—according to Think Communication by Isa N. Engleberg and Dianna R. Wynn—“focuses on the ongoing tensions between contradictory impulses in personal relationships” (p. 137). The theory distinguishes three different dialectics: the integration-separation dialectic, the stability-change dialectic, and the expression-privacy
For the Discussion Assignment of this week, I chose the Haitian story "Ghosts" by Edwidge Danticat. I chose this story because it shook me a little. It tells about the poor conditions of Haitian slums such as Bel Air in Port-au-Prince, "the Baghdad of Haiti" (Danticat, 2008, p. 1), and in particular the disadvantaged life of Pascal Dorien, a young boy from a good family who wanted to report the rude situation of his neighborhood by becoming a radio journalist. Unfortunately, the tough criminal situation in there, melted with the daily routine of his parents ' restaurant, where local gang bosses used to chill, dragged him in a vicious circle. He has been charged with several crimes unfairly and then released.
A Bird’s Eye View Emily Dickinson opens up her poem with the famous line, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words,’’. Paul Laurence Dunbar ends his poem with the line “I know why the caged bird sings!”. These two lines from the poets form the theme of the two poems. The poem “Hope is the thing with feathers” by Emily Dickinson, and “Sympathy” by Paul Laurence Dunbar both present a theme that suffering makes you appreciate hope much more. It seems that hope and pain are almost a dynamic duo.
Hemingway presents the elements of failure and suffering in The Old Man and the Sea by depicting several instances of suffering and failure which the Old Man, Santiago, has to go through throughout the course of the novel. According to Hemingway, life is just one big struggle. In the beginning of the novel itself, The Old Man, is presented as a somewhat frail old man who is still struggling with his life as well as his past failures. His skiff even had a sail which bore great resemblance to “the flag of permanent defeat”, with its multiple patches all over.
