How Does It Feel to Be a Problem Literary Elements

Historical non-fiction, novel, and biographical.

America, 20th century.

Third-person narrator.

Suspicious, bigotry, sympathetic, oppressive, gloomy, and critical.

Protagonists comprise Arab-Americans such as Sami and Rasha. Antagonists comprise prejudiced American Law enforcement agencies.

Bigotry towards the Arab-Americans that results in outright discrimination and arbitrary detainments.

The unfortunate, terrorizing September 11 attacks.

Flashbacks are included in the historical backgrounds of the Arab-Americans' whose stories and encounters with bigotry are told in the text.

The danger posed by Saddam Hussein is understated: “For the first month, it seemed as though the enemy were not Saddam Hussein but simply the sand.” The understatement underscores the immense threats posed by sandstorms.

Historical allusions such as the September 11 attacks and "the 1982 massacre in the city of Hama." Legal allusions include the "1996 more draconian anti-immigrant legislation in the wake of Timothy McVeigh's bombing of Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City."

The detainees' rights are subverted due to their identity as Arabs: "Hundreds were arbitrarily arrested in the first months after the terrorist attacks…Many of the men- and they were overwhelmingly men-were denied access to counsel, secretly shuffled between facilities, and deported in midnight planes back to their home countries." The law agencies violate the rights of the innocent detainees who were not involved in the attacks. All the detainees are deemed to be guilty due to their Arab origins. The agencies operate based on the assumption that all the Arab males in America are terrorists like those culpable for the September 11 attacks.

The counselor’s persona is paradoxical: “ He (the counselor) had all the capricious behaviour and arbitrary mood swings of a dictator.” The paradoxical personal is not ideal for a counselor who is required to guide traumatized individuals such as Rasha.

N/A

‘Mesihayeen’ refers to Christians.

The lion is personified: “The regime demanded devotion-All hail Hafez, the lion of Syria.”