When I first read “Allah Is Not Obliged”, two things stood out
When I first read “Allah Is Not Obliged”, two things stood out
Neglecting the commitment of one’s cultural identity forfeits one’s ability to accept themselves and thus belong in themselves. The protagonist in ‘Ancestors’ experiences confusion as he has no capability to communicate with his ancestors. He fails to establish a connection to his heritage, limiting his ability to understand them. The interrogating tone of the poem, symbolised through the persona’s questions ranging from “who” to “what” to “why” to “how”, proves this lack of identity as five out of the seven stanza’s end in a question hence accentuating his displacement. Expressed through the use of the word “you” the character’s disassociation with his self is explored as he refers to himself as a separate being, “why do you wake as…”, revealing his failure to identify with his self and hence increases his sense of confusion and loneliness. The alliteration of the men “standing shoulder to shoulder” further emphasies the persona’s isolation in comparison to the unity of the ghostly figures. Skrzynecki uses the blood allusion in “The wind tastes of blood” to show that connecting to our ancestors is in our blood. However, the persona’s sense of alienation from the “faceless men” provides visual imagery of the ancestors physically making the barrier to belonging. The failure to connect brings about frustration as he becomes haunted trying to comprehend what his dreams mean.…
Jon Klassen has produced pictures that portray numerous feelings. He has used artistic mediums such as ink, watercolour, sponges and watercolour paper. Using the watercolour paper, he has neatly speckled ink in places to create texture, drawn with an ink pens the objects and outlines. He has also contrasted the places with watercolour to plain areas with just ink. Klassen has chosen cool and warm colours such as, orange, blue, red, pink, yellow and the shades white, black and grey to signify the contrast between light and dark and tension between Laszlo and ‘The Dark’. The main character, Laszlo, catches the reader’s attention through his expressions, where he is placed and his body language. These influential illustrations support the convincing storyline and reinforce the theme of fear.…
As the story moves on, the speaker describes her marriage with her husband and her lifestyle in her new home in Egypt. The reader notices a repetition of the phrase, “I should have gone”. This displays the speaker’s sense of guilt and passiveness as the “serrating thought” of leaving constantly cut into her because she felt her husband “pulling away from” her. Color imagery is used to describe a…
The main character Candide went through many hardships throughout the literature. He always had the attitude of a very understanding and positive person. Candide loved to live. He thought he lived in the best of worlds, in the best of towns there was. This was not the fact. Candide went through many hardship he had to overcome. This would test his positive outlook on his life. Throughout the story Candide comes upon many different people who would lead him on different journeys. These things combined would try to change his love for life.…
The poem Feliks Skrzynecki expresses the emotional challenge that an individual confronts when coming to terms with their own cultural identity. Through the relationship between the persona and his father, the poem illustrates the cultural rift which has emerged as a result of their differing experiences. Despite the persona’s heritage, he is incapable of developing a strong connection with his culture and thus he feels unable to share the same positive perceptions upon life as his father. The persona’s epithetical characterisation of his father as “gentle… Alert, brisk and silent” enlightens the audience to Skrzynecki’s admiration of his father. This respect is further extended through Peter’s hyperbolic reflections upon his father’s diligence and work ethic: “I often wondered how he existed… Why his arms didn’t fall off / From the soil he turned”. However, Skrzynecki’s sense of dislocation from his own culture becomes increasingly apparent when he states, “… Feliks Skrzynecki, / That formal address I never got used to.” Throughout the poem, the persona suggests that by not being closely affiliated with his Polish heritage, he has consequently developed feelings of separation and unhappiness. In spite of the fact that the father lived under the extreme circumstances of World War 2, he is portrayed as a man who can still manage to relish the simple pleasures of life in stark comparison to Peter Skrzynecki. Skrzynecki’s ironic simile “…like a dumb prophet” further accentuates his lack of knowledge upon his Polish background and reveals the poet’s sense of ambiguity about his own cultural identity. The allusive and symbolic reference of the persona “pegging my tents / Further and further south of Hadrian’s Wall” is strongly suggestive of the poet’s growing incapacity to carry on the legacy of his Polish descendants. It additionally demonstrates the inevitability of Skrzynecki’s assimilation into Australian culture and because of this, he finds it…
This shows connections to people seeking to create a sense of belonging, Belonging can enrich our identity and new relationships a can lead to acceptance with understanding. This poem conveys a melancholy atmosphere and a somber tone of apprehension. Skrzynecki uses metaphors to evoke responders sense of feelings of damp, cold and emptiness. These migrants are empty-traumatized by the scenes of violence in Europe and transported to this new country with a new language and a new way of life, on central station they are in limbo. Felix Skrzynecki is at peace, he made the best of his journey and finds contentment in the simple things, “Watching the stars and street lights come on, / Happy as I have never been.” This is quite a surprising yet strong statement, which suggests that the persona envies his father because he has never felt this contentment and fulfillment. Father and son perceive their attachment to place very differently “The wind tastes of blood” which express that only blood connection with their past, so they can’t identity and understand where they belonging…
The dominating theme throughout this passage is the theme of beginning a new life, leaving the past behind. The narrator expresses this idea in line ten. “But it was Spain, and the new life beginning”. The fact that he intents to stay in Spain and wants to start a new life is also shown by his decision to buy a ticket without return (line 11). The “No return ticket” could also be a metaphor for his life journey, that England is not an option for him anymore, and that he cannot possibly ever return. In contrast to his idea to start a new life in Spain we have the fact that he only brought a knapsack, a blanket, spare shirt and a fiddle, which doesn’t seem very much considering the fact that he wants to start a new life in Spain. Maybe this is because he had very little in England and from the fact that he has to sleep in the open, we can tell, that he is probably short of money. The fact that he brought nothing with him can also be seen in connection with his young age. His actions make him appear naïve and innocent. Also the fact that the only Spanish he knows is how to ask for a glass of water (line 12-13) lets him appear even more naïve and we get the impression that he is rather lonely, due to the fact that he can’t speak to anyone. We can assume that the protagonist left…
In this extract, from the short story of “Corkscrew” by Dashiell Hammett, we are conveyed a sense of harshness and loneliness of the area as well as from its inhabitants, and so the main character seems to have difficulties in adapting to the new environment which he clearly has not previously faced.…
Eva Hoffman’s memoir, Lost in Translation, is a timeline of events from her life in Cracow, Poland – Paradise – to her immigration to Vancouver, Canada – Exile – and into her college and literary life – The New World. Eva breaks up her journey into these three sections and gives her personal observations of her assimilation into a new world. The story is based on memory – Eva Hoffman gives us her first-hand perspective through flashbacks with introspective analysis of her life “lost in translation”. It is her memory that permeates through her writing and furthermore through her experiences. As the reader we are presented many examples of Eva’s memory as they appear through her interactions. All of these interactions evoke memory, ultimately through the quest of finding reality equal to that of her life in Poland. The comparison of Eva’s exile can never live up to her Paradise and therefore her memories of her past can never be replaced but instead only can be supplemented.…
Lászlo Németh’s Revulsion is characterized in Hungarian literature as a “tudatregény”, a name that doesn’t lend itself easily to English translation. This genre refers to the archetypal nature of its characters, in the consistency and homogeneity of their minds. Revulsion is narrated by Nelli Kárász, a woman forced into an unwanted marriage by the father she idolizes and a sense of obligation to her ailing mother. Nelli embodies a few basic traits such as sensitivity, dignity and seriousness that govern most of her actions. This one-sidedness, however, is juxtaposed with and explored in such meticulous detail that she is in no way…
The aim of writing this story was to effectively connect the readers to the experiences of the protagonist, and it was achieved through the incorporation of various writing techniques and stylistic features. The story used a lot of imagery writing techniques that allowed readers to visualize each scene, thus allowing them to understand and connect with the story. The main imagery writing technique being used throughout the text was descriptive language as that creates a visualization of each scene within the reader’s mind, making the text much easier to comprehend. Thus, the readers could make an emotional connection with the main…
Exclusion is explored to a large extent throughout the poem ‘feliks skrzynecki’ Powerful influences displayed in the poem ‘feliks skrzynecki that caused Peter, the poet, to feel excluded from society much the same as his “gentle father” is that of culture and heritage. This is a world from which the son Peter, to a large extent feels excluded. There is a cultural divide of time, place and language cutting him off from the Polish companionships his father enjoys. Nostalgia is depicted through the quotes “talking they reminisced/About farms where paddocks flowered/With corn and wheat/Horses they bred and pigs they were skilled in slaughtering.” The poets son experiences his own form of alienation, not due to the migration process but being the son of those that have undertaken such upheavel in their lives. He looks on and listens rather than participates acknowledging his fathers connectedness with his Polish friends and with his garden but is unable to share. He envies the happiness/contentment and sense of belonging his father feels. The metaphor and imagery used in the quote “watched me pegging my tents/Further and further south of Hadrian’s Wall” exhibits clearly the sense of exclusion and alienation the son, Peter feels as his and his father’s worlds grow apart. The poet uses the image of a barrier to show that the powerful influence of cultural divide can’t be broken down or scaled, emphasising the exclusion experienced by the son, from his father.…
He kept looking at me silently. I said “A man’s 80% wishes are un-necessary, permissible and innocent. And if ALLAH fulfills them, although He has no problem in doing it, but these files of desires keep dribbling from table to table and from the office of one person to another”…
I will start my analyse, by making a small summary of the story. Then I will discuss the narrator, and what impact it has on the story, the characters, and their relation, and finally the theme; what is the writer trying to say with this story?…
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