“One day I am going to teach her how to make her own clay marble”(163), says Dara referring to her daughter at the end of the book in The Clay Marble by Minfong Ho. This is the story of a 12 year old girl named Dara who escapes the war by going to a refugee camp with her family on the Thai - Cambodian border. At the camp, she meets Jantu, another young girl who is seeking refuge at the camp as well. Dara believes a clay marble, having been invested with Jantu's magic, gives her the courage to get through her struggles at the camp. The story has numerous themes throughout. From survival prior to getting to the camp, to family while at the camp and ending with courage as Dara decides to return home to her village. Before going to the refugee camp, the theme of the story was survival. Dara’s brother, Sarun and some other farm boys escaped from their work crew and made it home to their families. “What a strange reunion that was - so muted and sad. Father was dead, Mother told Sarun. And Grandmother as well” (7). After hearing of his father's death, Sarun told his family about the camp. This shows how the theme before Dara goes the camp is survival because the war is killing people and breaking families apart. …show more content…
Jantu makes her a clay marble and tells Dara of its magic. During a shelling, Dara wants to bring the clay toys they made with them, but Jantu says to her, “It's only what you can bring inside you that really matters.” (57). This is important because this advice of family guides her throughout the story and influences her actions by making her think of her family and standing up for herself before anything
It gives facts and real life story living on this camp. This is actually someone real life story. When Jeanne dad left the family, the family could not bear. Living on the camps it was dusty, cold and windy. Jeanne states at the end that, “Even though her dad was a drunk, the way he drives—like a madman—actually inspires Jeanne with confidence to get past her fears of what life might be like outside of camp”. Growing up with all the racism remarks and surroundings was not easy and it has not been easy learning to remember and talk about her experience at the camp, but she overcame her fear. Jeanne has finally let it be free and be known. She now feels more better than ever about this. Also, even though Americans did not like Japanese she still married a
In the story, each character's mental and physical health changes, whether it is prominently obvious or not. Their health declines – whether it be a rapid decline, as in the father's case, or a graduating descent, like the the rest of the family – and they become older and less attached to the real world, more attached to each other. They retain their habits from the camp and it affects the way that they live amongst other people, in the outside world. The permanence of the changes is evident in each character and will strongly affect the way they live the rest of their life from that point.
“Every war is everyone’s war”... war will bring out the worst in even the strongest and kindest people. The book tells about how ones greed for something can destroy everything for both people and animals leaving them broken beyond repair, leaving them only with questions… Will they ever see their family again? Will they ever experience what it’s like to
... of this story is the will to survive. The will to survive is strong in all the characters though there are some who seem to expect they will die at any time. Lina is furious with herself when she stooped low enough to accept food thrown at her by the guards, but she does it anyway. Even the youngest children realize the need to endure the torture and survive. Jonas finds a barrel and comprehends that it could be made into a stove. Janina finds a dead owl and realizes that it could be eaten. This will to survive sometimes results in anger and selfishness, as seen in Ulyushka when forced to share her shack with Lina’s family.
A prominent theme in A Long Way Gone is about the loss of innocence from the involvement in the war. A Long Way Gone is the memoir of a young boy, Ishmael Beah, wanders in Sierra Leone who struggles for survival. Hoping to survive, he ended up raiding villages from the rebels and killing everyone. One theme in A long Way Gone is that war give innocent people the lust for revenge, destroys childhood and war became part of their daily life.
Throughout the graphic memoir Marbles by Ellen Forney, she talks about and discusses her daily struggles with dealing with her recent, formal, diagnosis of bipolar I disorder. She, from the very beginning, explains her constant struggle with dealing her mental state and her constant high and lows. When she illustrates her daily life she intensely details her emotions and how she interacts with people and different places. She uses the illustrations to speak for her when there are no words to be said. These words, spoken and unspoken, account for some deep, meaningful thoughts and questions that arise about her and her daily life with bipolar I disorder. Afraid of and questioning her mental state, Forney’s initially uninformed life creates panic
The first important theme in the novel is the significance of tradition. In the story, keeper tells, how tradition is transferred from one generation to the other generation. For example, he explains “drum like this always belongs to the people. Same as the song you sing with it. Old man taught me some of
The conflict that the individual faces will force them to reinforce and strengthen their identity in order to survive. In “The Cellist of Sarajevo” all the characters experience a brutal war that makes each of them struggle albeit in different ways. Each of them have their own anxieties and rage that eventually makes them grow as characters at the end of the book. When looking at what makes a person who they are it becomes obvious that the struggles they have faced has influenced them dramatically. The individual will find that this development is the pure essence of what it truly means to be
Janie sets out on a quest to make sense of inner questions. She does not sit back and
In “A Long Way Gone”, we follow a twelve-year-old African boy, Ishmael Beah, who was in the midst, let alone survived a civil war in Sierra Leone, that turned his world upside down. Ishmael was a kind and innocent boy, who lived in a village where everybody knew each other and happiness was clearly vibrant amongst all the villagers. Throughout the novel, he describes the horrific scenes he encounters that would seem unreal and traumatizing to any reader. The main key to his survival is family, who swap out from being related to becoming non-blood related people who he journeys with and meets along his journey by chance.
The Author throughout the story expresses a few main themes because he has been through war and had a negative experience with it. He tried to show you the negative aspects of it, and that there is no point of it. Throughout the book, by using expressions of the characters, he points about the gruesome psychological effects of war. Paul is very similar to the author since he too loathes the very existence of war, and sees no point of it. He even asks why there is war, and no one was able to give a proper answer to him. Because both of these people have experienced war, they unwillingly who it horrors compared whereas other who have never experienced was, glorify the moment.
In the beginning of Beah’s memoir, the tone was suspenseful. When Beah’s village was under attack by rebels, his family had to escape, while he was with his brother and friends in another city. During that time, he had to fend for himself and try to survive out in the open, without his parents, along with his brother and friends. Eventually, Beah was separated from his brother and friends and was all alone. “I walked for two days
The narrator continues with describing his resentment towards his home life, 'Coming home was not easy anymore. It was never a cinch, but it had become a torture (2).'; This excerpt provides the reader with an understanding of the sorrow that the protagonist feels at the beginning of the novel and throughout the first half. Further narration includes the protagonists feelings of distance from the land and blame that he places upon himself, 'But the distance I felt came not from country or people; it came from within me (2).'; Thus, as the reader, we understand that the narrator has removed himself from the land and his culture.
The Romans invented and revolutionised many innovations and technologies. Although, of all of these innovations and technologies, only one has survived unchanged for over 2000 years. Hydraulic cement-based concrete is certainly the most significant ancient Roman innovation that has come to be. Ancient Roman concrete was significant as it was cheap, and allowed the ancient world to build greater infrastructure. This in turn vitally helped revolutionise trade and many regions’ economy. Concrete also allowed long-lasting and important health systems, as well as security systems to be put into place for ancient Rome, revolutionising both health and safety across the ancient world. On top of this, to prove the significance of concrete, it is still
I was in the car with my friend and we were listening to Tiesto and we were living the part, singing along and clapping as if we were in some concert in Las Vegas. Truth was, we were in Ashrafeye and we were just passing time until we went home. While rocking around, a sudden knock on the window startled me and I looked out to see a woman holding a child. This woman looked young, maybe no more than 21 and she had a small girl in her hand. I opened the window and she started begging for money. I had seen many fair shares of beggars before but what struck me about this girl was that she was almost my age, and was also a Syrian. This girl…. Could be my sister. I suddenly thought how scared this girl must be, living in a terrible conditions away from her country, and on top of that being forced to beg for money and food. This girl is doing this mostly not for herself but for her baby child, for whom she is willing to die. The story of this girl is very similar to the poem of Mahmoud Darwish “A Gentle Rain in a Distant Autumn” in that poem the poet is describing how he left his country and he was then searching for a new reasons to die, in that poor girl case the reason to die for was her small child. The author also quoted “form the country that slaughtered me” and by this he is referring to his own country. This is very much similar to this girls story by which the war that happened in her country, my country, slaughtered her and made