Laila Lalami's Themes In Hope And Other Dangerous Pursuits

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Laila Lalami was born and raised in Morocco. She attended the University of Mohamed-V in Rabat, University College in London and University of Southern California--where she earned her Ph.D. in linguistics. She is currently a teacher of creative writing at the University of California at Riverside. Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits is about four immigrants: Aziz, Halima, Murad and Faten who try to cross the Strait of Gibraltar on a life boat. Each following chapter focuses on their lives before emigration and exploring the reasons for their decision.Then, we jump forward in time to see what happens to them after the trip. Before the emigration, Aziz lives with his parents and his wife, Zohra. he is tired of seeing…show more content…
As a young female, she is unwilling to remain silent and passively accept a role as a subject within the patriarchal society. Her criticism of the social and political norms in Morocco forces her to leave the country. The decision is made not by her but by two men: one is her imam, and the other is her girl friend's father, Larbi, who thinks he is going to lose his daughter because of Faten’s ideology, so he uses his position in the Moroccan Ministry of Education to have Faten expelled from school. After emigration, Faten enters the life of prostitution in Madrid. She meets a man, Martin, who becomes a regular client of hers and whom she thinks is different from others. She hopes that he would regard her as a human being and offer her a normal life, yet he treats her as a doll to play with. Sexually speaking, he looks at her body as a territory to invade: not as a woman with dignity. The dialogues between Faten and Martin revolve around the fact that Faten is searching for some hope to live as a human being with a normal life. By contrast, Martin is just trying to play a game and make their conversations sound like an interrogation. In the end, Faten proves that she is capable
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