Hey there!

Welcome to my final blog entry for this year in ASTU 100! This week we finished reading Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, an iconic novel depicting the true story of one family affected by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans from 2005 to 2008. The story was compelling however as we talked about in our ASTU 100 class, the family seemed a bit too picture perfect. As anyone who has read Eggers “autobiography” on the Zeitoun family and then looked up the name Zeitoun on Google can tell you, something doesn’t quite add up.

In my opinion, it was a good read; it gave good insight on Muslim Americans, the complications of politics that natural disasters may bring, and the story of racism that isn’t always told. Abdulrahman Zeitoun is depicted as a hardworking, faithful, open-minded, family-oriented man. I don’t doubt any of this, nor do I question Egger’s intentions on writing him as such. However, there is disturbing evidence that proves his home life isn’t perfect at all. In 2013, he was charged and arrested for beating his wife, attempting to kill her, and in 2014 he was charged for breaking the restraining order against his wife and kids.

So who is the man of Egger’s novel? A hero who stayed behind in the wreckage of the city he loved to feed his neighbours dogs, risking his life to make sure everyone else made it out okay, and trying to fix the homes of his clients? Or does this new profile of Zeitoun take away from the fact that he experienced completely unjust racism and human rights violations?

Thinking about this in class today, made me wonder how we define our heroes, and what we let them get away with. I don’t think the fact that Zeitoun’s real life character having deep flaws takes away from him being a hardworking man. I think his imprisonment had lasting and terrible affects on him and his family, and not everyone is completely good or completely evil. Painting Zeitoun as either black or white would be a misjudgement, as I think Egger’s did. I think it’s a good thing that this is the last novel we’ll be studying together in ASTU 100 because it brings up this point that we’ve been learning all year: that we should always remember to think deeply and critically of literature, political figures, government policies, movies, and whatever we come across.