In the book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” Katherine Boo takes her audience to a front row seat to the life that many slum dwellers suffer from in Indian city of Mumbai. It is able to portray the theme of the amount of struggle it can take to maintain hope while being stuck in poverty. Katherine Boo is able to portray this theme to her audience through many tragic life events that many would take for granted not to suffer through. These events include police beatings without justice, political corruption, unsanitary hospital treatment and many others. One of the most impressive things about Katherine Boo's book is the first-person journalistic account she offers her audience. This allows for a pure, unfiltered view of what is happening in India today. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay “Behind the Beautiful Forevers” by Katherine Boo is a first-person nonfiction account of the lives of some slum dwellers living in what is called the Annawadi Slum of the Indian city of Mumbai. Boo focuses his work on the lives of the Husain family who are Muslim. The Husains are a family of 11, the father is sick with tuberculosis and the eldest son Abdul collects waste that can be recycled for money. The family begins saving money in an attempt to buy land outside the slum, but disaster strikes when a neighbor lies that he was beaten and set on fire by the family. Father Karam is arrested along with his eldest daughter Kehkashan and son Abdul. The Husains' neighbor dies due to an infection in the unsanitary hospital and they are blamed for her death. At the end of the book the Husains are found not guilty even though Abdul's trial is still open and blocked. The Husain suffer many hardships as they await the verdict that will decide their future. Boo also focuses on a local teacher who manages to become a politician. Asha is the mother of Manju who is expected to be the first woman graduate from Annawadi. Asha controls power in the slum through several financial maneuvering tricks that she has learned. Asha eventually gives up on her dreams of politics when she is presented with a money-making scam in the form of the Department of Education. Boo is able to develop his theme of struggling to maintain hope while being stuck in poverty through his examples of hardship. slum dwellers endure. These include suicides, police beatings, political corruption through bribery, waste collection as a main source of income, and the fight to ensure children graduate from college for a better future. One of Boo's main examples of developing this theme is when he shows his audience the way in which suicide is seen by some as better than living another day in the slum. Meena, Manju's good friend in the slum, has just ingested rat poison for the third time in an attempt to commit suicide, she was tired of having no say in her life and the slum's struggle. “This was a decision she had to make her life” (145) and this would ease her pain, so she thought. Meena continued to vomit the rat poison, but was beaten by her brother and died a few days after. Another key example of how Boo develops his theme is when he describes how Asha talks about his daughter Manju Asha is describing when journalists visit the city to see how women are empowered and says “'my girl will graduate and. it will not depend on.
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