Weather/nature Flashcards
“What was it about a seasons first snowfall…to catch the fleeting grace of a new season, a lovely beginning, before it was trampled and corrupted?”
-allegory/ foreshadowing for the loss of her baby
-is is a metaphor for her grieving of her lost innocence
-“trampled” and “corrupted” juxtaposition of physical damage and psychological damage
“The Bamiyan Valley below was carpeted by lush farming fields…Babi pointed to rice paddies and barley fields draping the slopes…the sky above all of this was an immaculate spotless blue.”
-idyllic peaceful image
-symbol of hope and Beauty
-contrasts later devestation
“The good and safe place, where the barley fields were green, where the water ran clear and the cotton wood seeds danced by the thousands in the air.”
-natural imagery acts as a comfort and escape.
-anaphora of “where” shows her longing to be there instead of here
-idyllic simple description created comfort
“First the trees shed their spotty yellow and copper leaves. Then came the winds cold and raw ripping through the city. The seasons first snowfall was light…”
-pathetic fallacy: change in season aligns with huge change in life
-allegory of the snowfall acts as a symbol of hope as the pregnancy does(mimics Mariams own experience)
“She(Mariam) had passed these years in a distant corner of her mind. A dry, barren field, out beyond wish and lament. And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin flowers began to sprout Mariams uprooted them.”
- natural imagery represents her hope and love although Mariam cannot trust them( metaphor of uprooting flowers)
- double entendres of “barren land” literally barren and also doesn’t have anything.
-personified love and hope
“Two new flowers had unexpectedly sprouted in her(Mariam) life. She pictured mullah Faisullah twirling his tasbeh beads whispering, ‘it is god who had planted them’
-metaphor of laila and Aziza as flowers( natural imagery connotes beauty and hope)
-link to religion
“Somewhere with trees yes lots of trees” she (Mariam) said. They would live in a small house on the edge of some town they’d never heard of… or a village where the roads were narrow and lined with all manner of plants and shrubs and maybe a path that led to a grass field. Or maybe a gravel road that would take them to a clear blue lake where trout swam and reeds poked through the surface.
- natural idyllic imagery seems almost dream like
- their certainty and enthusiasm shows their hope for this future
- peaceful imagery contrasts the previous violent imagery showing their violent home is in the past
-description of nature represents new life and beginning.
The drought has ended. It snowed at last his past winter. The Kabul river is flowing once again.
- the end of drought reflects end of taliban reign
- snow has previously symbolised a happy time
