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Symbols And Motifs In Alan Gratz's Refuge

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Imagine you were floating in the middle of the ocean for days in hopes of escaping a corrupt government. What would you do if you needed to save your baby sibling, but the only way to save them was to give them away to strangers? Picture if you were a Jewish child in Germany during WWII trying to escape the wrath of Hitler, but only one of your family members would have the chance to live. There are many events that the main characters faced in Alan Gratz’s Refugee, which is a triple narrative story where the three young characters of Isabel, Mahmoud, and Josef escape the struggle in their homelands and go on a journey most people could never imagine or even survive. In Refugee Alan Gratz presents the usage of symbols and motifs, and narrative …show more content…

In Refugee Alan Gratz uses symbols and motifs to demonstrate a theme of to keep believing in tomorrow because when you make yourself seen, everything will work out. There are many examples of this happening throughout the book, but two strong examples happen in Isabel and Mahmoud’s story. In the middle of the ocean, Isabel’s boat was falling apart and her friend, Ivan keeps asking when they’ll arrive in Florida and Lito angrily responds to him. ‘“When are we going to get there?’ Ivan whined.’ Manana’, Lito said wearily.’ Manana’” (188). This example shows the characters eager and fighting to stay afloat in the moment, but staying hopeful for “Manana”, which means tomorrow in Spanish. The idea of Manana and tomorrow also appears countless other times and expresses a motif. It also shows how they kept believing in tomorrow, which adds to the theme. Mahmoud is a very shy and hidden character, but further into his story he and his family were put into a holding camp, and there was no …show more content…

During Isabel’s storyline, we learn Lito was an officer on Josef’s ship while it was docked in Cuba. Lito regrets not letting the ship into Cuba, so to make up for his past he decides to distract the Coast Guard and get sent back to a refugee camp so his own family could safely make it to the United States. Before Lito goes to distract them he says this from guilt and compares the Jew’s situation to their current situation, “‘When would the Jews be let into Cuba? Manana. When would their boat reach America? Manana’” (Gratz 276). This evidence supports my thesis because Gratz took elements from the theme and weaved them into all the character's stories, like the repetition of manana. He specifically created multiple narratives that are all similar in order to obviously present his objectives for the story. At the rear of the story, older Ruthie, who is Josef’s sister, and Mahmoud meet. Ruthie describes her journey as a refugee to Mahmoud and his family, and we learned the missing details from Josef’s story and what happened to him. “Josef died so Ruthie could live, and one day welcomes Mahmoud and his family into her house” (Gratz 316). This quote proves that Gratz used narrative structure to establish the theme because it shows how Josef was able to stand up and do something and it affected

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