In Dominique Lapierre’s juxtaposition novel City of Joy published in 1985 in Garden City New York, by Double Day Publishing Company, consisting of 544 pages, three men narrate their journey through the slums of Calcutta, India. The novel takes turns being told in narratives through the eyes of Stephan Kovalski, a catholic priest, Max Loeb, a US doctor, and Hansari Pal, a local Indian rickshaw driver. This book is set in Anand Nagar, “City of Joy” Calcutta. Stephan embarks on a journey to Anand Nagar after joining a religious order, where advocates are put in terrible living conditions globally to make a change. They are not told to live there, but Kovalski chooses to in order to empathize, and really live the every day life of a civilian in Anand Nagar. …show more content…
Throughout the novel, he is able to turn his faith around. Max Loeb enters Anand Nagar as a practicing doctor who came from an upper class elite American family, after being invited by Kovalski. At first, he is not used to the misery seen in Calcutta. Loeb was raised to take everything for granted, but comes out of the Calcutta mission with character, and care for every single patient and person he meets along his journey. Hansari Pal is a local of Anand Nagar. He is hardworking, and very dedicated to make a living and a home for his family. His struggle to fend for his family depends most on the rules of Social Darwinism; survival of the fittest, as well as luck, and perseverance. Pal finds bandages, and first aid supplements in the trash, and becomes lucky, and wealthy enough to support his family. Overall, the book portrays how two different worlds, the East and the West emerge into one culture, and one world. The three protagonists come out of the novel learning more about themselves and the world around them, than they knew at the start of the
In Ann Petry’s novel, The Street, the urban setting is exposed as an enemy with all who encounter it. This formidable adversary challenges anyone who wishes to brave the city including Luttie Johnson. Luttie forms a complicated relationship with the setting as she fights its challenges in attempt to find her place within it. Through her use of literary devices, Petry establishes Luttie’s relationship with the urban setting. Using selection of detail and imagery, the urban setting is revealed as the antagonist, and through personification, the conflict between Luttie and the wind is illustrated.
In order to understand why Whitty’s argument is effectively communicated it must be noted that this article was published in the politically progressive magazine, Mother Jones. The audience of Mother Jones mostly consists of young adults, mostly women, who want to be informed on the corruptness of the media, the government and the corporate world. In order to be fully effective in presenting her points, Whitty starts her article by creating a gloomy imagery through her story of the city of Calcutta and the hard lives which its citizens live. Through her use of words such as “broken down…. Smoky streets” to describe the scene at Calcutta, she is able to create this gloomy image. She ties this gloomy story to how the population of Calcutta is the reason for the harsh living environment and how immense its population density is when compared to cities like New York. Additionally, she discusses how the increase in population has caused harsh lives for individuals in the Himalayas, the rest of India and the rest of the world. Through these examples she ties the notion that the root causes of such hard lives are because of the “dwindling of resources and escalating pollution,” which are caused by the exponential growth of humankind. She goes on to
This book teaches the importance of self-expression and independence. If we did not have these necessities, then life would be like those in this novel. Empty, redundant, and fearful of what is going on. The quotes above show how different life can be without our basic freedoms. This novel was very interesting and it shows, no matter how dismal a situation is, there is always a way out if you never give up, even if you have to do it alone.
All human beings cope with different challenges in life. These challenges can be emotional, mental, financial, social, or spiritual. The challenges in life learned in this course will be examined in different literary works such as novels, plays, and short stories. Isolation and conflicts are the challenges involved in Ender’s Game. Then, The Miracle Worker deals with reaching out someone and to an individual with a disability. Finally, conflict involving technology is evident in The Veldt. The challenges revealed in different works of literature are essential because they enable people to develop human qualities that give them opportunities to succeed and move forward.
Jacob Riis’ book How the Other Half Lives is a detailed description on the poor and the destitute in the inner realms of New York City. Riis tries to portray the living conditions through the ‘eyes’ of his camera. He sneaks up on the people flashes a picture and then tells the rest of the city how the ‘other half’ is living. As shocking as the truth was without seeing such poverty and horrible conditions with their own eyes or taking in the experience with all their senses it still seemed like a million miles away or even just a fairy tale.
Life is a complicated process. It’s filled with many things that keep it interesting but at the same time, very dull. Life’s what you make it and for many, it’s something we all strive for. In the story, The Space Between, the author takes full advantage of the premise as there’s rarely a dull moment- as in life. The book is filled with many literary devices that work nicely with the plot and dialogue. These include; metaphors, similes, irony, personification, and many more. We follow a young man who is finding his way in the world. He has only a week to change his life for the better. But he will face many obstacles on the way that brings the readers into a startling and fun journey.
His perceptions change from seeking for opportunities to unrealistically believing that he can acquire wealth by becoming a traveling salesman, and later in the book, he is defeated by the Great Depression and goes back to home; his perception of the reality becomes increasingly difficult to dealt with since he tries to escape from the reality and never really solves the problems, and although he later tries again to become successful during the war, he becomes insane and loses all of his perceptions.
While it may be easier to persuade yourself that Boo’s published stories are works of fiction, her writings of the slums that surround the luxury hotels of Mumbai’s airport are very, very real. Katherine Boo’s book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers – Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” does not attempt to solve problems or be an expert on social policy; instead, Boo provides the reader with an objective window into the battles between extremities of wealth and poverty. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” then, exposes the paucity and corruption prevalent within India.
In The Promised Land, Nicholas Lehmann follows the stories of black migrants, politicians, and bureaucrats through the Great Migration, and attempts to explain the decline of northern cities, the constant liberty struggle of blacks across America, and government response to the issues surrounding the Great Migration. This work signalled a drastic change from the structured approach of Thomas Sugrue’s, The Origins Of The Urban Crisis, which observes the effects of institutions and human agency on postwar Detroit and its marginalized peoples. Both Sugrue and Lemann had (albeit slightly different) holistic views of the political climate of postwar cities, which helped provide context for prejudices towards blacks and the poor, and subsequently
...easures and reckless behavior instead of close connections and marriage, John’s morals continue to cause a significant issue that demonstrates how he would be unable to survive in such a society. While his morals are constantly put to the test, through the different forms of entertainment, his own friend mocking his ways, and his relationship with the girl he loves, they are finally broken in a high-pressure situation at the end of the novel. As a result, John is so guilty and broken after the events that he brings upon his own death. Through this experience, Brave New World exhibits the struggle that someone who has not adapted to the modern world’s ways will face, yet also emphasizes that they should continue to maintain their own ways despite this for the alternative of conforming to society’s ways, which go against your morals, could be even more consequential.
The theoretical concept of individual resilience has been long explored. Charles Darwin a famous theorist proclaimed “It is not the biggest, brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.” Essentially, individuals are able to survive, if they adapt to the world around them. Octavia E. Butler creates this notion in her dystopian novel. In the year of 1993, Octavia E. Butler wrote the novel Parable of the Sower. The story is told through the eyes of the main character, Lauren Olamina. Lauren describes the horrendous and corrupt world around her and notes of the populations response to the violent acts. The year is 2025, when the world is overrun by corruption, greed, criminals, violence, famine, thirst, slavery and division. Through all this, Lauren is able to hold optimism in the world largely due to her background, hyperempathy condition and values. Lauren creates a set of fundamental values, that she wishes she can use to shape the world and create a symbolic home.
Ellis, Edward Robb., and Jeanyee Wong. The Epic of New York City. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf, 2005. Print.
The theme of this book is that the human capacity to adapt to and find happiness in the most difficult circumstances. Each character in the novel shows this in their way. For instance, their family is randomly taken from their home and forced to work but they still remain a close nit family. In addition, they even manage to stick together after being separated for one of their own. These show how even in the darkest time they still manage to find a glimmer of hope and they pursued on.
In order to raise awareness of the staggering injustices, oppression and mass poverty that plague many Indian informal settlements (referred to as slum), Katherine Boo’s novel, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, unveils stories of typical life in a Mumbai slum. Discussing topics surrounding gender relations, environmental issues, and corruption, religion and class hierarchies as well as demonstrating India’s level of socioeconomic development. Encompassing this, the following paper will argue that Boo’s novel successfully depicts the mass social inequality within India. With cities amongst the fastest growing economies in South Eastern Asia, it is difficult to see advances in the individual well-being of the vast majority of the nation. With high
In Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo tells the stories and struggles of families living in a slum adjacent to the Sahar Airport in Mumbai, India. Boo details the ways in which the residents of this slum, Annawadi, attempt to escape their poverty, but fail to do so. Despite numerous initiatives sponsored by the Central Government of India to improve the lives of the many individuals living in Annawadi, these programs are ultimately unable to do so due to deep-rooted corruption in the city of Mumbai. Regardless of this, the residents of Annawadi seem to accept corruption as a fact of life, and do little to fight it. As illustrated over the course of Boo’s narrative, this results from the fact that many Annawadians recognize the ways in which the laws of their society allow for the unfair treatment of certain groups of people, especially the poor and religious minorities, and are also cognizant of the fact that they have no real power to change a system that