The term “family” may evoke feelings of comfort and warmth. Family relationships are intimate and contain an innate emotional bond. Throughout life, there are tribulations that will test the strength of these bonds. One single decision can have detrimental effects on the welfare of subsequent generations. In And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini explores the limits of love through betrayal, separation, and sacrifice.
Hosseini represents family bonds by beginning each chapter in a different perspective. As each character’s plotlines develop, the stories begin to overlap and unite each of the narrators. Each choice a character makes has an influence on the lives of other characters. The complexity draws parallels of the complex relationships the characters have with each other. Nabi serves as the keystone, suggest the sacrifice of Pari both for the good of his sister’s family and in hope of Nila’s affection. Due to the realization of his poor judgment, he confesses his wrongdoings late in life hope of redemption. Nabi writes, “...tell her [Pari] that I cannot know the myriad consequences of what I set into motion. Tell her I took solace only in hope” (138). Through betrayal and deceit, relationships are strained. As time passes, love mends the distance and reveals the truth.
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Saboor must betray his family for their safety. Although he loves his daughter, he knows that he cannot properly provide for his family. By giving Pari to the Wahdati’s, he is granting Pari a life of promise and luxury. The quote, “When you have lived as long as I have, the div replied, you will find that cruelty and benevolence are but shades of the same color” (13) describes this phenomenon. Despite the pain of separating his family, Saboor must do what he believes is best. It is the strength of his love that urges him to commit this sacrifice. Nila attempts to fill her emptiness by adopting Pari. However, the tension between Pari and Nila highlights the consequences of her destructive behavior. During an interview, Nila says that, “Children are never anything you’d hoped for…” (190) and “...I’ve come to believe she’s my punishment” (224). Pari hinders Nila’s ability to feel young and desirable, as Nila uses her sexuality for power and attention. Although there was a sense of love between the two, lies about adoption and quarreling over lovers complicate their relationship. Pari has a sense of emptiness, a manifestation of the innate bond she has with her real family. Due to Pari’s limited maternal guidance, she has doubts in her parenting capability. When there is a possibility that her daughter has leukemia, Pari cannot thinks, “I don’t have the heart for this” (234). Hosseini writes, “...she cannot think of a more reckless, irrational thing than choosing to become a parent.” (234). This statement alludes to both Nila and Saboor. Nila recklessly chose to become a parent out of selfish motives, and therefore had no capability of dealing with a child’s emotional needs. In Saboor’s case, being a parent is irrational because of the likelihood of heartbreak. Similar to Pari’s fear of losing Isabelle, Saboor lost Pari, causing him heartbreak and guilt. The wonder and complexity of raising children attests to fear of betrayal and conserving family bonds. While it was heart wrenching for Saboor to give Pari away, being deserted is the ultimate betrayal. Madeline’s desertion of Thalia represents the heartbreak associated with the deception of love. Markos describes her saying, “....Madeline, the cartographer, sitting down, calmly drawing the map of her future and neatly excluding her burdensome daughter from its borders” (341). The love of a child should be intuitive, and it is blasphemy to abandon maternal responsibility for something as shallow as appearance. This demonstrates contrast between the fortitude of genuine, pure love and superficial obligation. Masooma, Parwana, and Nabi represent the boundaries of betrayal between siblings. Parwanas betrayal is detrimental, causing Nabi to flee to the city for work and Parwana to care for Masooma. If this had not occurred, Saboor would not have married Parwana and Nabi would not have met Nila. Therefore, Saboor would not have to give up Pari. One mistake wreaked havoc on numerous fronts. Hosseini uses the twins to represent goodness and deceit. Masooma-meaning “innocent” in Urdu- sacrifices herself so that, “Parwana keeps marching toward her new life” (53). Despite the wrongdoing, Masooma allows Parwana to be free, encompassing the purity of love. Hosseini prompts the analysis of the purpose of good deeds with the difficult relationship of cousins Timur and Iridis.
Iridis describes Timur as, “coarse, lacking in imagination and nuance… [He] cheats on both his wife and his taxes” (140). While Iridis wishes to help Roshi, his benevolence soon fades as his own hectic life overshadows her operation. Timur then pays for the operation and improves her quality of life. Iridis’s connection with Roshi signifies the fragility of promises. Hosseini is reflecting on human nature; how often we make promises only to disappoint those that depend on us the most. This pseudo-family is deceitful and broken, testing the authenticity of
love. Abdullah and his daughter Pari’s relationship represent the correlation between love and loss. In order to deal with the loss, of his sister Pari, he makes his daughter her namesake, signifying the boundaries Abdullah’s love is willing to transcend. Pari’s use of Pari as an imaginary friend parallels her aunt’s feelings of emptiness, further limning the ideal that the bond between families is innate. Pari’s devotion to her father conveys the feelings of obligation associated with kindred love. Due to Nila taking Pari away, Pari is guilted into staying with her father during his illness for fear of deserting and betraying him. Pari says, “They make me out to be a saint, the daughter who has heroically forgone some glittering life of ease and privilege to stay home looking after her father...I resent him for the narrowed borders of my existence, for being the reason my best years are draining away from me….I am nothing like a saint” (373). Although it pains her, she has sacrificed her schooling and livelihood out of love. Despite the impossible odds, Pari is reunited with her brother Abdullah. Their childhood lullaby symbolizes the connection between them. They each remember their specific parts, with a vague sense of familiarity of a missing verse. Pari recalls, “...Baba sings the same two lines several times: I found a sad little fairy/Beneath the shade of a paper tree. Pari...lifts her hand. In Farsi, she sings: I know a sad little fairy/Who was blown away by the wind one night” (389). Although they have very little recollection of each other, their bond has surpassed generations. Love and loyalty to one’s family can take on many forms: through devotion, protection, sacrifice, remembrance, and fear of loss. Hosseini uses the challenges of his characters to test this love. Even though each story is separate, entwined they create an enchanting story of the abundance of love. Through betrayal and heartbreak, true bonds will remain.
A misconception that we often have about family is that every member is treated equally. This fallacy is substantially portrayed in Alistair Macleod’s short story, “In The Fall”. Typically speaking, in a family, the Mother is the backbone for kindness and provides love and support with no unfair judgements. However, when we relate to the portrait of the Mother in Macleod’s short story, we perceive the portrait as a self-centered woman whose affection is only shown upon what interests her. The Mother’s unsympathetic persona is apparent throughout the story as she criticizes all that holds sentimental value to her husband and children.
Shostak, out of all the women in the tribe had made close connections with a fifty year old woman with the name of Nisa. The woman, Nisa, is what the book is about. The book is written in Nisa’s point of view of her life experiences while growing up in that type of society. Nisa’s willingness to speak in the interviews about her childhood and her life gave Shostak a solid basis on what to write her book on. Nisa’s life was filled with tragedies. She had gone through certain situations where Nisa loses two of her children as infants and two as adults. She had also lost her husband soon after the birth of one of their children. According to Shostak, “None of the women had experiences as much tragedy as Nisa…” (Shostak, 351).
Sacrifice is a common motif in the work, and it allows the reader to visualize what is most meaningful to each of the characters. Hosseini’s use of Mariam’s sacrifice, along with those of the other characters, gives the reader a taste of what the characters value and how it shapes the meaning of the novel as a
The family's personal encounters with the destructive nature of the traditional family have forced them to think in modern ways so they will not follow the same destructive path that they've seen so many before them get lost on. In this new age struggle for happiness within the Kao family a cultural barrier is constructed between the modern youth and the traditional adults with Chueh-hsin teeter tottering on the edge, lost between them both. While the traditional family seems to be cracking and falling apart much like an iceberg in warm ocean waters, the bond between Chueh-min, Chueh-hui, Chin and their friends becomes as strong as the ocean itself.
A family either plays a positive role in one’s life leading to their success, or a negative role leading to failure. The love and concern from a family is very important in determining the prosperity in life of its members, and without this support, a person will only face adversity. In Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie McDonald, the Piper family, primarily the father, is responsible for the sorrowful life of the Piper daughters. The disappointment in life of Frances, Kathleen and Mercedes is due to lack of love and nurture, inadequate parenting and over protectiveness.
In “Up the Coulee,” Hamlin Garland depicts what occurs when Howard McLane is away for an extended period of time and begins to neglect his family. Howard’s family members are offended by the negligence. Although his neglect causes his brother, Grant McLane, to resent him, Garland shows that part of having a family is being able to put aside negative feelings in order to resolve problems with relatives. Garland demonstrates how years apart can affect family relationships, causing neglect, resentment, and eventually, reconciliation.
Longley, Clifford. "Sacred and Profane: What Exactly Do We Mean by a Family?" {The Daily Telegraph} 30 Jan. 1998.
All through time, successive generations have rebelled against the values and traditions of their elders. In all countries, including China, new generations have sought to find a different path than that of their past leaders. Traditional values become outdated and are replaced with what the younger society deems as significant. Family concentrates on this very subject. In the novel, three brothers struggle against the outdated Confucian values of their elders. Alike in their dislike of the traditional Confucian system of their grandfather, yet very different in their interactions with him and others, begin to reach beyond the ancient values of Confucianism and strive for a breath of freedom. Their struggles against the old values lead to pain, suffering and eventually achievement for the three of them, however at a harsh price for two brothers.
*Have you ever known a family that valued interdependence over independence? Which parts of this chapter would not pertain to them? Which parts would?
Currently, families face a multitude of stressors in their lives. The dynamics of the family has never been as complicated as they are in the world today. Napier’s “The Family Crucible” provides a critical look at the subtle struggles that shape the structure of the family for better or worse. The Brice family is viewed through the lens of Napier and Whitaker as they work together to help the family to reconcile their relationships and the structure of the family.
And choose wrong?” (P.98). From reading this, I feel that the community was able to control problems such as divorce, rape, teen pregnancy, and AIDS. They all are given a life that is predictable, orderly and painless. Mostly, they have no memory or experience. In reality, we learn from our mistakes to be better each day. Experience is the best teacher in the world; unless one goes through sorrow, he or she will never know how it feels. “Warmth, Jonas replied and happiness. And let me think. Family, that it was a celebration of some sort, a holiday. And something else I can’t get the word for it. Jonas hesitated; I certainly liked the memory, though. I couldn’t quite get the word for the whole feeling of it, The Giver told him the feeling that was so strong in the room is love” (P.125). Family in the novel is described as a group of people that have a unit or bond that they share each day together.
Any story that begins with a mother fantasizing about reuniting with her daughter on T. V talk show is going to have something to tell us about their family. Probably a lot to tell us in fact. As the narrator herself points out, though, there’s a lot that television wouldn’t be able to show the family members and their complex relationships to one another in this story. The conflict, in fact, concerns competing ideas about what tradition (or heritage) even means. In a classic rock song, the Rolling Stones sing, “you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need.” In this paper, I’m going to relate this quote to my own personal experiences. I’m going to closely analyze the two sisters, Maggie,
Family on the other hand is the everyday living environment within which spirituality and historicity are applied and lived out. ‘Family’ in the Armenian community refers to more than the family of origin or the nuclear family. Instead, it includes both of these along with all of the extended family and even the small surrounding community. These family ties are much more important and influential in the decision making process than would initially appear, therefore, they must be acknowledged and understood. All Armenians may not uphold the same spirituality, historicity, and family values, however, they would still approach life’s decisions based on these cultural categories.
In the novel A Thousand splendid suns, Hosseini exemplifies the need for companionship and love through the genuine lack of these characteristics in Mariam, a underappreciated, illegitimate woman. Mariam’s battle for self-worth shapes the sincerity of her relationships with others and how they feel they should treat her. The product of Mariam's experiences illustrates how essential love and companionship are when discovering dignity and purpose through adversity.
In this essay I am going to consider Spivak’s theory and perspectives of the subaltern in terms of Kazuo Ishiguro’s two novels A Pale View of Hills and Never Let Me Go. I will be considering Spivak’s theories of “post-colonialism”, “essentialism” as well as revising her essay on “Can the Subaltern Speak?” I will be focusing on defining the subaltern characters and their role in Ishiguro’s novel and how they deal with their status as subaltern or whether they are even aware of this constraint that they are faced with. As well as considering the narrative power that Ishiguro has given them in his novels simply by giving them a “voice”. A further aspect to be considered in this essay is the role of memory and trauma in the creation of the subalterns