The character I plan to write about for my final paper is Amal from Does My Head Look Big in This? written by Randa Abdel-Fattah. Amal is of the Muslim faith and attends high school as an eleventh grader. She makes a huge decision to wear the hijab full time before she starts her school year. Three things that help her get through school and life are the hijab, prayer, and an important holiday to the Muslim faith known as Ramadan. Amal finds a deeper connection with her faith when she begins wearing the hijab as well as when she begins praying. Not only does she connect to her faith, but she also gains confidence, which she realizes may be too much confidence later in the novel. Ramadan really helped her identify with other characters in the …show more content…
Through this conflict, Amal was able to reflect on herself and realize the judgements she was making on other people. This argument went on during Ramadan, which is, “the ninth month of the Muslim year, during which strict fasting is observed from sunrise to sunset” (SOURCE http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Ramadaan). In Shaykh Kabir Helminski 's Naked and Vulnerable on Ramadan, he suggests that fasting has to do with vulnerability. Helminski says, “We expose ourselves to our own emotional state and become more vulnerable and honest with ourselves,” (Naked and Vulnerable). He discusses that when you are fasting, you are exposing yourself to make yourself a better person. If Ramadan is about bettering yourself and identifying your wrongs, it is clear that this main argument occurred during this holiday for a …show more content…
When Amal asks her about this, she replies, “‘You think I no have freedom? I feel free. I have my own house and my own life and I happy,’” (Abdel-Fattah 331). Gulchin get’s tired and tells Amal that if she talks to Leila, to tell her that if she comes back she can go to school and they will not discuss marriage; she is compromising and that is something Amal never thought she would do. At this Amal realizes that, “her love for Leila seems no less than my own mom 's love for me” (Abdel-Fattah 333). Amal recognizes that she only tried to pull Leila and her mother apart instead of trying to see things from Leila’s mother’s perspective and bring them together. No, Amal does not think Leila’s mother was right, but she realizes her own wrongs and knows what to seek forgiveness for. All of this occurs right around Ramadan, and I think that is key because Amal has finally recognized that she was being too judgemental and has taken time to reflect on
Essentially, Laila and Mariam protect each other from Rasheed, but they also protect the other important people in their lives when they are threatened also. Equally important, they protect others, in spite of the lack of protection from the power of oppression.
Our class has been reading a book called “Brown Girl Dreaming” for the past two weeks. The author, Jacqueline Woodson talks about her life growing up. For example she talks about how her mom and dad divorced when she was young. She talks about how she moves to Greenville and how her grandpa is like a dad figure, and how her mother came back with a pale skinned baby after she went to New York. Character traits make up a person, and while reading the book, you can see what Jacqueline is like during her childhood. Jacqueline has many character traits, such as being jealous of her older sister, being naive, and she is also respectful.
Author Naheed Mustafa, who is a Canadian born Muslim woman, writes a piece of literature that relates to her faith. In her article she is describing to the audience her own personal story by using a first point of view. The article titles as “My Body is My Own Business,” that is a part of a novel that’s from The Globe and Mail which was written in 1993. Its about her reasons of wearing the "Hijab", although she is not required to wear one, she does so anyway to strengthen herself. The article is at a glance effective as the author calls for equality upon women in general, and ineffective at another glance because the article lacks logos and ethos, and supports her argument by relying on one holy book.
For my independent choice reading, I chose the book Rebel Belle. The main character, Harper, is the school’s it girl. She has the boyfriend everybody wants and a group of friends who will do anything for her. This all changes and suddenly she’s a Paladin, protecter of the Oracle. At first she can’t figure out who this is, or even what an Oracle or Paladin is, but once she does, things start to get complicated. She is sucked into this whole other world that involves car chases, murders, and trying to save her own life.
Throughout the history of storytelling, there have always been storybook characters that inspire and motivate young readers to become more engaged and knowledgeable about the struggles that some people go through. Reading has always been a pastime of mine; while reading I collect new friends in wonderful places that otherwise I could only dream of. Each of these characters that I have befriended and connected with over the years, has shaped my personality in some way or another, and choosing just one seems an impossible task. Although women’s rights have skyrocketed in the past century, overall the world is still predominately male-orientated, but the world of books has no bounds for inspirational women. Countless authors have written books with strong female leads, most of them fiction, but nonetheless inspirational. When choosing the most influential to me, I could start by writing about the character that first allowed me to immerse myself in the world of the written language, Nancy Drew. Or I could write about the character that allowed me to feel comfortable with being unique and intelligent, Hermione Granger. But I won’t go into those clichés, the book character that has inspired me more than the heroines starring in the hundreds of books that I’ve read is real life Super Girl, Malala Yousafzai.
Snart, Jason. "In Aid Of Teaching James Joyce's "Araby." Eureka Studies In Teaching Short Fiction 9.2 (2009): 89-101. Literary Reference Center Plus. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.
Imagine waking up every day and having to cover your entire face and body, to avoid punishment, then serving the men in the community rather than working or going to school. Then, picture women as subservient and inadequate to men in society on every level. This is the impertinence that women in the Middle East face every single day of their life; it is how they are born and raised and it is all they know. In Malala Yousafzai’s factual autobiography, I Am Malala, the Taliban target Malala for empowering girls to go to school and they shoot her in the head; however, somehow, Malala lives to continue the battle for women’s right to an education. The book was published in October 2013 by Little, Brown and Company and it gives a first-hand portrayal of what life is like for women in Malala’s home town of Swat Valley, Pakistan (Lamb and Yousafzai 3). The issue is that women do not have the opportunity to educate themselves or exercise what many consider natural freedoms. This is predominating in many Middle Eastern Countries. Women in the Middle East should have equal rights as men and they need help gaining their freedoms.
Fakhraie launches her essay by explaining how Muslim women struggle every day because of what they wear. In her essay, she talks about a teenage girl that was killed by her father because she refused to wear her hijab. Also, many women that wear a hijab are being banned from sporting events in the United States. A hijab is a “traditional Muslim garment” (Fakhraie 461) that several Muslim women wear every
According to role performance people construct their identity through social interactions. Specially the extent to which they do or do not act out the roles that society has given them (Whitehead, Talahite & Moodley, 2013,11-12). Malala did not conform to societal norms or give in to the pressures of the Taliban. Malala refused to become subordinate to the Taliban and its dominant power. When she was told that girls were not allowed to go to school, she opposed this notion. She was not stifled by the Taliban, but instead overcame obstacles of oppression and hegemonic masculinity. She challenged hegemonic masculinity and refused to conform to the docile and passive ideal of a women, that is expected of her. Instead she was able to turn her negative
“I am Malala” by Malala Yousafzai is a beautiful and hard breaking book at the same time. This book is an autobiography that describes the author childhood and her support on the right for girls to have an education. Through this autobiography, Malala describes the restrictions that are imposed on females in her country. There are many that believe that woman of Pakistan should not be educated in the other hands there are a few that oppose this idea. Malala’s support on education for girls almost cost her life, since she was shot by the Taliban. From a multicultural perspective Malala’s story touches on topics such; culture shock, discrimination within your own culture, oppression, religion, family and woman’s right. Despite the opposition
The religion of Islam was imposed upon Iranians, whether they liked it or not. Marjane and her classmates “...didn’t like to wear the veil, especially since we didn’t understand why we had to”(Satrapi 3). The young girls were against wearing the veil because they were not practicing
The story consists of many characters, but it does not have a lone main character. Every character's background is explored quite thoroughly, giving you an idea of their personality as well. For instance, Maryam is a religious, independent Iranian woman who treasures her country's customs and values, despite living in the US for decades. She values her cultu...
In “Araby”, author James Joyce presents a male adolescent who becomes infatuated with an idealized version of a schoolgirl, and explores the consequences which result from the disillusionment of his dreams. While living with his uncle and aunt, the main character acts a joyous presence in an otherwise depressing neighborhood. In Katherine Mansfield’s, The Garden Party, Mansfield’s depicts a young woman, Laura Sherridan, as she struggles through confusion, enlightenment, and the complication of class distinctions on her path to adulthood. Both James Joyce and Katherine Mansfield expertly use the literary elements of characterization to illustrate the journey of self-discovery while both main characters recognize that reality is not what they previously conceptualized it as.
The women whose lives I read about (individually as well as in group studies) seemed without exception to be in a constant state of tension from numerous external and internal sources. The many token examples of varying degrees of Americanization- or in some cases, resistance to this phenomenon- included, but were not limited to, wanting to uphold traditional homeland customs and practices; asserting new freedoms to take on more responsibility in religious and political arenas; working to improve traditional inadequacies of U.S. mosques to better accommodate women of faith; the dilemma of appropriate dressing for religious and professional communities; challenging traditional and current marriage practices and the difficulties associated with them; and maybe most significantly, combating the general naiveté, or even outright discriminatory ignorance of Americans about Islam. Considering the fact that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world (between new births and the increasing number of conversions), and the United States is arguably the most influential and powerful country in the world, the last of these examples must, and will, be given some extra attention at the end of this paper.
...ller” not only takes a lot of courage in the Arab society while being a woman, but portrays the mentally strong character, in this case, Firdaus.