A Gray Haze Over the Rice Fields by Jayanta Mahapatra

A Gray Haze Over the Rice Fields by Jayanta Mahapatra was written to point out the message that there is always new life, even in the eeriest of times. The use of adjectives such as “gray” and “haze” and “unsteady” gives a negative connotation to the poem. But the scene of a cow with its new born calf perceives new life in the midst of the ugly.  Also, in the second stanza, the lines, “But at times I see a shadow move slowly over these, a shadow freed from the past and from the future…” also shows that there is always good in something bad. 

The reference to the speaker’s grandmother, “Such things only claim that I am looking out in search of memory, not death. Those little kisses on my cheeks my long-dead grandmother gave me…” make me believe that leading up to the poem, the speaker’s death was near, but instead of looking at the bad situation, dying, she chose to look out in memoires, the good. The continuous theme throughout the poem just repeats the message that good is in the bad, but good should also trump bad.

The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner didn’t seem like a fiction novel to me. The details and specifics Khaled Hosseini included made the story feel incredibly real. The dates and accuracy of war really added to the book.

In the beginning, I detested Amir for how he had treated Hassan. I detested him as much as Amir detested himself. Hosseini created Amir’s character very intensely and carefully. He made sure the reader would know Amir did not like himself as much as the reader shouldn’t.

The biggest turn around in the story, for me, was not when Amir decided to save Sohrab, but when Sohrab was in the hospital and Amir prayed for the first time in fifteen years – When Amir realizes there is a God. “I see now that Baba was wrong, there is a God, there always had been.” So much detail went in throughout the story about how Baba did not believe in God. And finally, in the end, Amir believes He exists. It seemed to sum the story into a whole. That God exists and forgiveness can be found and one can be good again.