Under the Persimmon Tree Essay

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What do you think of when you hear these words? Afghanistan. Pakistan. Refuge. War. Most of us think of poverty, terrorists, or lost and malnourished kids, fighting to survive in the streets of Afghanistan or Pakistan. But in Under the Persimmon Tree, by Suzanne Fisher Staples, refuge takes on a whole new level. Najmah, a young Afghan girl, finds herself alone when her father and brother are taken away from her by the war, and her mother and baby brother are killed in a bombing accident. Elaine, whose Islamic name is Nusrat, is also by herself. An American, she waits out the war in Peshawar, Pakistan, and teaches refugee children. Waiting for her husband to return, who runs a clinic in Mazar-i-Sharif, Nusrat gets more and more hopeless. Najmah is on the road, seeking for her lost family and fighting to live another day. Nusrat doesn’t know how much longer she can take the anxiety. But just when all hope is lost, Nusrat and Najmah together find their way home. One of the main conflicts in this book is Man vs. Society, which Staples does a good job of sampling. Near the very beginning of Under the Persimmon Tree, the author included an event that was heartbreaking to Najmah and her mother. Since it was almost time for the war, the Taliban came to Najmah’s household and took her father and brother for war. ‘“I have no guns,” Baba-jan says, looking at the man directly. The Pashtun Talib mutters something, and the men shove and drag Baba-jan and my brother toward to Datsun pickup trucks.’ (Page 18) After they are taken away, Najmah and what was left of her family was unbearably sad. Who wants their loved ones to fight in a war when there’s a chance of them getting killed? After Najmah’s mother and baby brother are killed in a bombing accident, one of her parents’ friend’s brother takes her with his family on a road trip to Torkhum. Soon they arrive at a

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