Many stories exist detailing how people found ways to survive horrifying situations and atrocious conditions. Siddhartha, a fiction story by Hermann Hesse, tells the tale of a young man that looks for pure happiness, a difficult journey that takes him his whole life. To Kill a Mocking Bird, also fiction, by Harper Lee is about a small town divided by race when a white girl accuses a black man of rape. Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China is a true account by Jung Chang about the hardships of a grandmother, mother, and daughter in China from about 1920 to 1978. Assignment Rescue, an autobiography by Varian Fry, tells of how he saves thousands of innocent people from the Nazis during WWI. The characters in these books endure and survive through
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Siddhartha tells of a time when “The world was sick, [and] life was difficult” (Heese 21). Despite an uncertain future, people found promise sent from Buddha of a “new hope… a message, comforting, mild, full of fine promises” (Heese 21). They coped with their hard lives with this message of something better coming. Varian Fry also held onto hope when around 15,000 people asked for help from their agency. Even though it was a “time of growing difficulties cumulating in a series of crises and disasters” (Fry 161), they still “had more successes than failures that spring” (Fry 161). They held on to hope that they would be still be able to save many people and as a result they did. Similarly, Chang’s grandmother found hope in escape while she was a concubine to a warlord general. At one point the general fell gravely ill and she was summoned to his house. “As a concubine…she had no rights. If the general died, she would be at the mercy of the wife” (Chang 39), conceivably meaning forever separation from her child. “She knew she and her daughter had to get away as fast as possible” (Chang 39). Weeping with terror and anger, she found solace in planning an escape, providing a hope for the future. Additionally, After Scout, the narrator of To Kill a Mocking Bird, is spurred on by a classmate announcing that “Scout Finch’s daddy defended niggers” (Lee 74), Atticus …show more content…
“Siddhartha himself was not happy…his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still” (Heese 5). He was taught as a Braham’s son according to custom; however, he wants more knowledge to know how to live in bliss and peace. He becomes a Samana and, travels to see Gotama, the Buddha, learns the materialistic world, and then becomes a ferryman, enduring and searching his entire life for contentment. Happiness was also sought by Chang’s mother. Her “mother’s closest friends were her pets” (Chang 53). She had multiple pets from an owl to jars of grasshoppers and crickets despite the icy household. Moreover, at one point when Dr. Xia asked Chang’s grandmother if “she would mind being poor, she said she would be happy… ‘If you have love, even plain cold water is sweet’” (Chang 55). Before their move, Chang’s “grandmother had never experienced such poverty, but this was the happiest time of her life” (Chang 56). They were poor but they found laughter. Regardless of their drop in status, they manage to find
Siddhartha tells of a time when “The world was sick, [and] life was difficult” (Heese 21). Despite an uncertain future, people found promise sent from Buddha of a “new hope… a message, comforting, mild, full of fine promises” (Heese 21). They coped with their hard lives with this message of something better coming. Varian Fry also held onto hope when around 15,000 people asked for help from their agency. Even though it was a “time of growing difficulties cumulating in a series of crises and disasters” (Fry 161), they still “had more successes than failures that spring” (Fry 161). They held on to hope that they would be still be able to save many people and as a result they did. Similarly, Chang’s grandmother found hope in escape while she was a concubine to a warlord general. At one point the general fell gravely ill and she was summoned to his house. “As a concubine…she had no rights. If the general died, she would be at the mercy of the wife” (Chang 39), conceivably meaning forever separation from her child. “She knew she and her daughter had to get away as fast as possible” (Chang 39). Weeping with terror and anger, she found solace in planning an escape, providing a hope for the future. Additionally, After Scout, the narrator of To Kill a Mocking Bird, is spurred on by a classmate announcing that “Scout Finch’s daddy defended niggers” (Lee 74), Atticus …show more content…
“Siddhartha himself was not happy…his intellect was not satisfied, his soul was not at peace, his heart was not still” (Heese 5). He was taught as a Braham’s son according to custom; however, he wants more knowledge to know how to live in bliss and peace. He becomes a Samana and, travels to see Gotama, the Buddha, learns the materialistic world, and then becomes a ferryman, enduring and searching his entire life for contentment. Happiness was also sought by Chang’s mother. Her “mother’s closest friends were her pets” (Chang 53). She had multiple pets from an owl to jars of grasshoppers and crickets despite the icy household. Moreover, at one point when Dr. Xia asked Chang’s grandmother if “she would mind being poor, she said she would be happy… ‘If you have love, even plain cold water is sweet’” (Chang 55). Before their move, Chang’s “grandmother had never experienced such poverty, but this was the happiest time of her life” (Chang 56). They were poor but they found laughter. Regardless of their drop in status, they manage to find