Buy essay on The Themes of Gender in the Crescent By Abu-Jaber

The Crescent tells a story of the life of Arab-American community in Los Angeles. Diana Abu-Jaber, the author of the novel, narrates her story in lyric and touching manner. She makes narration very emotional and personal. In this novel the author illuminates the questions of national identity of Arab Americans.
Sirine, the protagonist of the novel, tries to resolve the problems of personal relations and her national identity. Sirine is totally occupied with her work in the restaurant until she meets the man she feels attracted to. When Sirine starts her love affair different memories about the life and relations of her parents come to her head. Hanif, the professor of Eastern Studies disturbs quite and calm life of Sirine. She discovers the nice warring of romance and love relationship. Hanif also gets new experience when he starts these relations. He misses the Bagdad, the city of his childhood. When he meets Sirine he finally gets a hope to get a quite and stable happiness with the woman he loves.
Abu-Jaber’s story gives new and important details about the life of Arabian immigrants in the United States. The novel describes Iraqi people as lively people of flesh and blood. The author makes the readers compassionate to her characters. The readers get an opportunity to see the life of immigrants in the U.S. and to penetrate their hard memories.
The author underlines origins and personalities of the main characters. As the author speaks about Hanif: “Sirine watches Han and for a moment it seems that she can actually see the ancient traces in Han’s face, the quality of his gaze that seems to originate from a thousand-thousand years of watching the horizon – a forlorn, beautiful gazing, rich and more seductive than anything she has ever seen” ( Abu-Jaber 45). While Sirine gets closer with Han, she finds out more about the life of Iraqi people. She finds out that his sister has disappeared and his brother is imprisoned. Immigrants have their own past, their feelings and problems. After sad evens of 9/11 people regard Arab immigrants only as potential terrorists. Abu-Jaber wants to break this perception. She shows how regime hurts ordinary people and how they also suffer from unfair attitude of the government in their motherland. In addition, they meet prejudices and unfair attitude when they come to America in the search for the better life. Despite the novel describes sad events it makes light impression and gives hope for better.
The author gives her readers an idea about true life of Arabian descents in the center of Los Angeles. The information presented in the book is different from the typical ideas about the Arabian immigrants in the U.S. From the one side Abu-Jaber describes atrocities and hardships immigrants experienced in their motherlands. She shows that Lebanese, Iraqi and Jordanian immigrants have painful memories about the atrocities and mistreatment of people in their native countries. Painful memories haunt these people and they try to come in terms with them in their new motherland. At the same time all memories of the immigrants are full of love to their native land. Despite they all had to pass through many hardships, they still love and appreciate their native countries. These people know that social and economic changes in their counties will not let them coming home but they think about their home with sadness and nostalgia.
This longing for home is an aspect which is seldom discussed by the literature about immigrants. Scientific data presents social and economic factors of the life of immigrants in the U.S. It studies the opportunities for the new life immigrants get in the U.S. and it pays little attention to the past of these people and their cultural, social and religious heritage. The style of life, the way of thinking and perception of reality are different in these countries and people who immigrate to the U.S. not only adapt to the changes in the way of life, but also experience great cultural shock.