The major themes represented in the book, Farewell To Manzanar is destruction of family. The Wakatsuki family were put into an internment camps. Their connection and bond with each other is forced to break when they are put into the camps after the incident of the Japanese bombing the Pearl Harbor, forcing every Japanese-American person into those camps northeast of Los Angeles. Papa was the epitome of destruction within the family, for he was no longer the “strong” one and wasn’t able to hold them all together anymore. Pushing everyone to stop coming together towards dinner time and mostly scattered them to be in all different places within the camp. Not wanting to be together, stuck in one place, but rather volunteering or working. Papa gets
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.
In the novel, Eldon and Frank Starlight, who are father and son, have a strained relationship. When Eldon accused Frank of an inability to understand war because he had never fought in one before, Frank said, “‘Not one of my own, leastways.’ ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ ‘Means I’m still livin’ the one you never finished,’ (Wagamese 168).” He was explaining to his father that experiences don’t need to be physically experienced; they may also be mentally experienced. Frank knows a different type of war. It is the war where he grew up not knowing anything about his past, other than the fact that he is an Indigenous person. Whereas, Eldon’s war experience was a physical experience with the trauma and post traumatic stress of fighting in the Korean War. Inevitably, Frank ends up realizing that these stories though different, through empathy and an attempt to understand each other, they can bring people together. Wagamese’s strong connection to empathy is a grueling one. In an interview done with Shelagh Rogers, Wagamese spoke about not being there for his children. He said, "The lack of a significant parent is really, really a profound sorrow, a profound loss. It's a bruise that never really heals" (Rogers). With the difficult history of Wagamese’s family, he wanted to be able to pass on those meaningful lessons learned to his children. This is important because having learnt something like that from a parent or guardian is really meaningful to a child; it is a part of the parent and their past that will never leave and carries on through the child. The authors empathetic portrayal of his characters is direct result of the cultural influences of his
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.
about the war and his lack of place in his old society. The war becomes
The characters and themes in these writings contrast and relate in several ways. The poem is told through the perspective of the grandfather’s grandchild, who cares for him, saying certain things remind them of him after he didn’t “live here anymore” by stating that their grandfather “is blankets and spoons and big brown shoes.” Like the grandfather in “Abuelito Who”, the grandfather in “The Old Grandfather” is old and it is stated that his legs “would not carry him” and his eyes “could not see”, which affected his family’s feelings towards him. The grandfather’s old age was viewed as a weakness, and he was not treated as an equal by his family, such as not being able to sit with them at the table for dinner.
focus on critiquing the oppressive power of patriarchy that is represented through the oppressive character of Uncle Phillip. The novel narrates the story of Melanie and her
The traditional human family represents a necessary transition between self and community. In the difficult era of the 1930's, the family's role shifted to guard against a hostile outside world rather than to provide a link with it. With the drought in the Dust Bowl and other tragedies of the Great Depression, many were forced to look beyond the traditional family unit and embrace their kinship with others of similar necessity. In his novel The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck uses the theme of strength through unity to comment on the relationship between the dissolution of individual families and the unification of the migrant people. The journey of the Joad family west illustrates this as they depart a parched Oklahoma, arrive in a hostile California, and eventually settle in amongst others as unwelcome there as they are.
The Joad family’s journey to California results in the breakup of their family. The very first cause of the breakup of the individual family was with the loss of their land. The Joad family had lived there for many generations and had very strong ties to the land. Losing their land was equivalent to losing their family history. This is expressed by “She puts them in her pocket, closes the box, stands and with resignation tosses the box on the fire”(Galati 21). It is very evident that ma is reluctant to let her past go. On their journey they lose their first family member, Grampa Joad. This shows that there is a strong connection between a man and his home. Grampa’s great longing for his homeland ultimately resulted in his death.
This importance is not only show in the chapters about the Joad’s, but also in the chapters that follow the movement of thousands of men and women during the Dust Bowl. The Joad family undergoes a transformation throughout the novel. At the start of the novel, the Joad family follows a very traditional family structure, in which the males are the leaders of the family while the females do as the males say. And by the end of the novel the mother is in complete control of the family, while the father is withdrawn from the family and it stuck in thought. This family structure shift helps the Joad’s overcome with the trials of moving west. The traditional family members also shift, families are no longer determined by biological means, but instead families are made through fellowship and kinship. This allows families to grow and become more supportive of each other. This shift gives migrant a boost because they know that they are not alone and that the other migrants will welcome them and support them on their journey to California. Families, and the many changes to families, helps each one of the migrants along on their journey from their farmland to the promise land of
“The Hmong came to America without a homeland. Even in the very beginning, we knew that we were looking for a home. Other people, in moments of sadness and despair, can look to a place in the world where they might belong.” (Pg. 273) This is probably the statement that best summarizes the book. It is sad to hear how the Hmong people were not wanted and were being killed. The Hmong people had nowhere to go except further into the mountains to avoid any harm. It is good to see that this family is having some success. However, it must be hard to not have a true place to call home.
Farewell to Manzanar, by Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston, describes the life of Jeanne and her family during World War II. During this time Jeanne was a young girl who could not comprehend what was occurring in her life. Jeanne and her family were forced to move to Manzanar due to government orders after the bombing of pearl harbor. After the bombing, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order, that relocated all Japanese-Americans to internment camps. In the camps were Jeanne and her family were forced to live, her and her family faced difficult living conditions, conflict with other, riots, cultural conflict and racial issues.
The one of the main themes in the epilogue, and in the entire novel is
...is story, Hemingway brings the readers back the war and see what it caused to human as well as shows that how the war can change a man's life forever. We think that just people who have been exposed to the war can deeply understand the unfortunates, tolls, and devastates of the war. He also shared and deeply sympathized sorrows of who took part in the war; the soldiers because they were not only put aside the combat, the war also keeps them away from community; people hated them as known they are officers and often shouted " down with officers" as they passing. We have found any blue and mournful tone in this story but we feel something bitter, a bitter sarcasm. As the war passing, the soldiers would not themselves any more, they became another ones; hunting hawks, emotionless. They lost everything that a normal man can have in the life. the war rob all they have.
One of the themes in the novel is the subject of clashing ideals. The main character of the novel, Tim, lives in a divided family who each has their own opinion on the war– the
The major cause of the theme of betrayal in Manto’s stories is the frenzy caused during the partition. Partition caused communal conflict and mass dislocation. There is violence all around, accompanied by inhumane practices such as riots and rape. Ironically Manto himself was a victim of dislocation and the frenzy of the partition. During the time of the partition he began to drink excessively. He was met with extreme poverty and depression. Manto in his writing has been extremely blunt and has written about the bitter reality of the time. Perhaps this is why his main characters were mostly deprived and lonely people including prostitutes and beggars. Also his description is vivid which in turn reflects his state as well. He penned down most of what he observed around him from a very neutral perspective. In most of Manto’s stories the characters do not completely meet their closure. Death is the ultimate end. This notion is important in the way how loyalty between characters plays its part to meet this final end - death. In ‘The Assignment’ the story ends with Santokh Singh remaining loyal to his ancestors yet betraying Mian Sahib. Manto has written talking of the partition "were the times when philosophy, argumentation or logic had lost their meaning;they were nothing but an exercise in futility"(Manto 103). As mentioned previously madness and betrayal go hand in hand. When people live as if there is no tomorrow, when people have literally nothing to lose there is chaos. This chaos leads to bestiality which is very much evident in stories like ‘Bitter Harvest’. When there is bestiality people lose control, people lose rationality.This lose of rationality leads to irrational decisions which eventually lead to betrayal. This is s...