Zeitoun Character Analysis

Zeitoun, a novel, written by Dave Eggers, telling the stories of Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun during Hurricane Katrina. Through their stories, readers can get a first-hand knowledge of how they survived through this tragic and tough time. From these countless stories, people who were affected by Hurricane Katrina also had their dignity taken away from them by the situations that occurred.

Zeitoun’s dignity fell into pieces once the authorities arrested and sent him to jail. When Zeitoun first gets to jail, he is brought into an interrogation room. In the room, Zeitoun was ordered to strip down. At the sound of his command, Zeitoun followed the order but quickly learned that the guard meant every piece of garment that was on him. Once at the

As a Muslim, Kathy constantly wears her hijab since it is a practice. One day before the hurricane, Kathy was on the street, and “a girl of about fifteen was crouched behind Kathy, her arm raised, about to yank the hijab off Kathy’s head” (Eggers 46). At the thought of a teenager trying to pull off her hijab, she was furious because she was judged and made fun of being a Muslim. Her freedom of believing in any religion was being taken away from her. Instead of losing her dignity, she “cocked her head. ‘You got a problem?’ she barked” (Eggers 46). Kathy stood up like David did and stood a little higher and took a stand for herself. Another person who took a stab at Kathy’s religion was her own mother. Her mother and family are all Christians so when Kathy converted to being a Muslim her family bashed her. Her mom once told her to “‘take that thing off your head,’ she’d said. ‘Go out and have a good time’” (Eggers 57). Her mother thought she was not being herself and that she is not Kathy was anymore. This hurt Kathy’s dignity because her own mother did not support her religion and wanted her to stop being a Muslim. Even though Kathy tries to hold herself together most of the time, she still has her own dignity which can be

An incident Zeitoun vividly remember was Frank and him helping a lady in her seventies, who was bigger than others weighing over two hundred pounds, that was dangling by holding onto a bookshelf. Frank and Zeitoun stopped and became a Good Samaritan. In Zeitoun’s account, the men had to use all their might to help this woman. All their hard work paid off when “the women rolled into the bed of the boat. It was not a graceful landing but she managed to sit up” (Eggers 103). It was described as a slow process for everyone and it “was not right to watch a woman of her age suffer like this” (Eggers 103). The woman’s dignity was gone in an instant since Zeitoun and Frank had to help her in an unimaginable way. Zeitoun swam under the water to lift her up, and the old lady could not help them which made the situation more difficult. Another time Zeitoun felt like his dignity and the dignity of the survivors was seized from them was when he promised to get help for Pastor Alvin and his wife, Beulah. They waited out for the storm, but now is running out of supplies and is in desperate need of help. So, Zeitoun decided to help them and tries to get them help from the authorities. Unfortunately, the rescue group did not help them. When Zeitoun went back to where Pastor Alvin and Beulah lived to make sure they were taken care off, he found them still there. At the sight of the couple still there, “He felt