Joe Sacco’s graphic novel, Palestine, deals with the repercussions of the first intifada in Israel/Palestine/the Holy Land. The story follows the author through the many refugee camps and towns around Palestine as he tries to gather information, stories, and pictures to construct his graphic novel. While the book is enjoyable at a face level, there are many underlying themes conveyed throughout its illustrated pages and written text. The most obvious of the themes is that of violence, brutality, and torture. Tied into this also is the idea of injustice. Many of these themes are intertwined. Constantly the reader is berated with violent images, or descriptions of violence. These must be on nearly every second page of the novel. A good example of all these themes together is in the section called “Moderate Pressure: Part Two” This deals with a story of a man called Ghassan who was accused of an affiliation with an illegal group that could not be proven. Ghassan was forced to stand or sit in certain positions for hours on end, he was beaten, deprived of sleep, and restricted from medical attention that he needed. Continually he went to court, and the case was adjourned to later dates to try to confiscate some kind of evidence against him. There was no justice for Ghassan until after several days (approximately 14); he was released for lack of evidence. Ghassan suffers from violence (which is unjust), from brutality (one of the inspectors trying to induce a heart attack), and torture. Ghassan’s ordeal is illustrated in both written and pictorial form. Likewise to this, there are many other pictorial examples and textual examples from front to back of violence, brutality, injustice, and torture . There is also the theme of hypocrisy littered throughout the pages of Joe Sacco’s novel. This idea of hypocrisy is mainly centred on what the Israelis do to the Palestinians. In images the hypocrisy is apparent. Often there are pictures of the Palestinians on the same page, or on the second page but aligned with the Israelis. Often the Israeli side is shown as more optimistic, brighter, or livelier than those portraying the Palestinians. An excellent example of this is on page 260, where both Tel Aviv and Nablus are portrayed. In Tel Aviv, Sacco is reclined on a chair, with two attractive women, and it appears to be a sunny warm day, in Nablus, Sacco is with a crowd of... ... middle of paper ... ...seem unnecessary and oppressive, but to certain Palestinians it is a matter of religious faith. Another example that shows this is when Sacco is in a car with Khaled . Kahled asks Sacco about things in the West that strike him as ‘bad’, but are quite normal to people from the West (i.e. Sex). These characteristics of evil also impact on an individual’s personal opinion of what is evil. In Palestine, the reader is exposed to various characters’ personal opinion of what evil or good is. An example of this is the figure of Suddam Hussein, to many people (Westerners, Israelis); Hussein is a very ‘evil’ figure. However, to some of the Palestinians represented, Hussein was a force of good, of liberation, the ‘final hope’. Evil in the novel is portrayed to the reader in many contexts that our society and cultural norms and values can understand. Brutal violence, deprivation, apartheid, and torture are all symbols of what we would see as evil. The book portrays the evil as seen by the Palestinians, many of these characteristics matching our own societal ideas of evil, so that the reader can comprehend. Bibliography Sacco, Joe. Palestine. Fantagraphics Books, Seattle: 2001.
The major themes of the book are directly related to the themes which John Demos uses to tell this story. The storyline moves on though the evolution of one theme to the next. The function of these major sections is to allow the reader to relate to John Williams overall state of mind as the story unfold. By implementing these major themes into his work, John Demos make it possible for the reader to fully understand the story from beginning to end.
14. Was the theme implicit or explicit? Explain. I would say that the theme is implicit because the author never really comes out and says it, but rather it is hinted. The last chapter of part three is a more obvious way of saying the theme is guilt, but the author does not say it and so the reader has to infer. When Hannah commits suicide, it was most likely because she could not live with the guilt of what she had been apart of. When she tells Michael she has learned how to read, we can infer she was referring to how she had now read everything that had gone on during the Holocaust.
...n idea about the human psyche and the nature of evil. Throughout the novels, we have acts that were dubbed as evil. Some of these were: the acts of the rabbi’s son, the killing of Simon, and even the joy Eliezer felt at the death of his father. All of these points and the many that weren’t mentioned all shared a singular idea. It was that the ulterior motive of these acts revolved around people reacting on instinct and desire. From these, we gain the final message of the novel that was proven time and time again. This message was that evil isn’t an act that just isn’t moral. Evil is the primal, instinctual, an animalistic rage that lives in the darker part of our heart, a part of the heart that is brought to light upon the moment the chains of civilization are broken..... A moment where we fall prey to our instincts and our conscience disappears into the darkness.
Critics have already begun a heated debate over the success of the book that has addressed both its strengths and weaknesses. The debate may rage for a few years but it will eventually fizzle out as the success of the novel sustains. The characters, plot, emotional appeal, and easily relatable situations are too strong for this book to crumble. The internal characteristics have provided a strong base to withstand the petty attacks on underdeveloped metaphors and transparent descriptions. The novel does not need confrontations with the Middle East to remain a staple in modern reading, it can hold its own based on its life lessons that anyone can use.
Joyce, James. “Araby.” The Norton Introduction to Literature, Shorter Eighth Edition. Eds. Jerome Beaty, Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J. Mays. New York: W.W.Norton.
Most people think Israel always belonged to the Jews but it wasn’t always a safe, holy place where Jews could roam freely. Along with Palestine, it was actually forcefully taken from the Arabs who originated there. The main purpose of this novel is to inform an audience about the conflicts that Arabs and Jews faced. Tolan’s sources are mainly from interviews, documentations and observations. He uses all this information to get his point across, and all the quotes he uses is relevant to his points. The author uses both sides to create a non-biased look at the facts at hand. The novel starts in the year 1967 when Bashir Al-Khairi and his cousins venture to their childhood home in Ramallah. After being forced out of their homes by Jewish Zionists and sent to refuge for twenty years. Bashir arrives at his home to find a Jewish woman named Dalia Eshkenazi. She invites them into her home and later the...
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. The story “Battle Royal” by Ralph Ellison displays a few specific themes through the story which are easy to depict. A few themes from this story are, first racism and finding his self identity, then the danger of fighting stereotype with stereotype, and last blindness. These themes play an important role in the story to better help the reader understand it.
In an article published by the Palestine-Israel Journal, it spoke about a survey done of Palestinian living conditions in parts of their homeland, including West Bank and Gaza Strip. The findings of the survey provided insight of the Palestinians constant war against unbelievers. The article stated, “In examining social change in Palestinian society, it was found that a high level of social integration exists together with a low level of social advancement. And the economic disadvantages of prolonged occupation with restrictions on movement and unexpected curfews and closures have created an environment of uncertainty and an inability to plan ahead of time for individual, family and group
Israel, officially known as the State of Israel, is located in Western Asia, on the southeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, sharing its borders with Lebanon in the north, Jordan in the East, Egypt in the South, and Palestinian territories in the West. In its Basic Laws, Israel’s constitutional law, Israel defines itself as a Jewish and Democratic State; it currently is the world’s only Jewish majority country. Since declaring its independence in 1948, Israel has been home to the majority of Jewish immigrants from all over the world. The country’s population consisted mainly of Jews (75%), Arabs (20%), and the rest immigrants from all over the world increased from 870,000 individuals in 1948 to over 7.9 million in 2012 (Haft 2013). Over the past decade, Israel’s population has continued to grow, at about a rate of 20% per year. The country’s financial center is Tel Aviv, while Jerusalem, Israel’s capital, is also the country’s most highly populated city; although, internationally Jerusalem is not considered to be a part of Israel.
For example, the aforementioned themes both relate closely to one another, and their presence alongside each other may indicate an underlying cultural or historic motive of the author. In essence, in order to truly understand The Kingdom of this World, one must look beyond the text on the novel’s pages not only to gain a deeper understanding of the novel’s main themes, but also in order to uncover a deeply rooted, underlying theme which persists throughout the entire novel, and that is tyranny. The 'Standard' of the 'Standard'. Upon first glance, this excerpt may appear to be a simple, reactionary act of violence by the black slaves against their white oppressors.
The ongoing and explosive Israeli-Palestinian conflict has its roots in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century when two major nationalist movements among the Jews and Arabs were born. Both of these groups’ movements were geared toward attaining sovereignty for their people in the Middle East, where they each had historical and religious ties to the land that lies between the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. Toward the end of the 19th century, Southern Syria (Palestine) was divided into two regions, inhabited primarily by Arab Muslims, and ruled by the Turkish Ottoman Empire (BBC News). At this time, most of the Jews worldwide lived predominantly in eastern and central Europe. When the Zionist political movement was established in 1887 and began to fund land purchases in the Ottoman Empire controlled region of Palestine, tensions between the two groups arose. Since then, Israel and Palestine have been vying for control of this land that they both covet, and this conflict remains as one of the world’s major sources of instability today, involving many different players. One of these players who continues to halt the peace process, is a militant fundamentalist Islamic organization called Hamas. Hamas has intensified extreme opposition and bloodshed in the region, with the aim of destroying the state of Israel. However, few people know that starting in the mid 1970s, Israel secretly supported an organization that would later emerge as Hamas, even though both groups had competing future visions for the nation. Why did it choose to do this when it had so much at stake? This paper will address the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict leading up to the beginning of Israeli support of Hama...
There are many themes that occur and can be interpreted differently throughout the novel. The three main themes that stand out most are healing, communication, and relationships.
...sents them in a more upbeat comical manner, he says in reference to his approach, “I wanted the forces of oppression to be much subtler and internal, so everything is more localised, but no less oppressive”, I believe that this is an accurate assessment of the novel, as despite the upbeat, comical tone of the novel, it is evident that there is still an underlying message. Fforde is able to convey these messages through the use of satirical techniques, particularly exaggeration. There is no doubting that this novel, which was inspired by texts like 1984 and Brave New World, raises significant warnings. The major warning is that in a society primarily concerned with continuous stability there are many dangers, in the text these can be seen to be the dangers of a minority government in power, the eradication of creativity and the loss of ability to form relationships.
He underlines the divine idea of peace and understanding given by God to His people. However, this conception is well opposed by the explosions and terror shared in the area instead. Given that, the sociopolitical value of the book Palestine by Joe Sacco cannot be underestimated. The author provides Western people with an exact picture of the war in the Middle East and the violence it spreads as an after effect. Hereby, a political mismatch by officials and inability to urge for peace are, perhaps, the main topics in the book. And what I appreciate is that the graphic novel doesn’t seek to politicize the events. The focus of all the anecdotes centers on the people. Ordinary people like you and I, who are drawn into the vicious cycle of hate, prejudice, violence, revenge and
The article Regime-Made Disaster: On the Possibility of Nongovernmental Viewing collected from the book Sensible Politics: The Visual Culture of Nongovernmental Activism, New York, NY: Zone Books, 2012. The author Ariella Azoulay who is an art curator, filmmaker, and theorist of photography and visual culture, currently she is working as an assistant professor at Brown University. However, her study discloses a detail view how the Israeli regime turns the photography of their invasion on Palestinians to benevolent photographs of Palestinian refugees.