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Upper Paradise could symbolize homeland, the irreplaceable place for the mother that is full of her memories whether happy or sad.

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Background information about the author  

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Background information about the author  

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Sahar Mustafah herself has a hybrid identity, she is a second-generation immigrant of Palestinian parents ( Sahar is the daughter of two Palestinian parents that immigrated to the US, she was born in the states), so she is a Palestinian-American, and in the story, the mother is an Arab (probably Palestinian) who immigrated to the states to start a new life.

Also, in her writings, Sahar relates and explores her Palestinian heritage; She seems to be attached to her roots and proud of her origin, and these qualities are also found in the mother's character in "Lower Paradise Road" who is homesick, proud of her identity and tries to hold onto what reminds her of home.

Another similarity is the Shayla which represents Islam and is what Muslim women wear to veil themselves, the mother is wearing it which means she is a Muslim, and Sahar also comes from a Muslim family...

"Yamma" "Shayla"  "to start over" "Upper or Lower Paradise"

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The immigrant mother and her son are trying to find a house in the exile country to start over. Finding a house means finding a home, a place to settle down in, where you feel belonging, safe, happy, and comfortable. The son was so desperate to find a home and settle down, while the mother was not that eager about it because she is not really ready to settle down and find a place, she does not feel belonging to the exile country, in her mind, and heart, she is still in her homeland.

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Bombing symbolizes war, fear, sorrow, and memories. (the reason for the mother's immigration and how occupied she is with her past)
Bombing and war could also refer to how people in the west are always used to portraying themselves as victims of the east's terrorism, while in this story middle eastern people are the actual victims of terrorism and not the ones who are causing it, so it reverses the stereotypes of who is victimized and terrorized

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From refusing to exist the car to unlocking the door

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From refusing to exist the car to unlocking the door

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Refusing to exit the car at the beginning of the story could symbolize refusal to accept reality, not having the ability to leave the past behind, not having the desire to adapt to the current circumstances, and closeness to change.

While unlocking the door at the end of the story symbolizes openness to change, leaving the past behind, contentment, and surrendering to reality with the hope of starting a new life.

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The mother symbolizes the old generation of immigrants who are attached to their roots, proud of their origin, and find difficulties adjusting to foreign countries. They are not open to change and are often skeptical and judgemental.
The mother symbolizes the feelings of loss and dis-belonging when she cannot feel belonging to this new country but also can't go back to her homeland.

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The shayla symbolizes Islam, it is what Muslim women wear to veil themselves. It could also symbolize a specific dialect and region that the mother and her son come from

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The son symbolizes the new generation of children of immigrant parents who do not show loyalty or pride in their roots and are able to adapt and adjust themselves quickly to the place they live in which makes them lose their traditions and identity to resemble the majority and fit in.
The son's style, behaviors, and way of speaking basically symbolize the basic style that men wear and how they speak within the US, the country that he is trying to fit in.

However, we can also look at the son as a symbol of the youth's ability to live in the now, move on, adjust, and adapt to different circumstances in life (an ability that older generations seem to lack)

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The white roommate symbolizes the American society (the exile country that is strange to the mother)

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The word Yamma symbolizes the Arabic language and indicates that our immigrant characters are specifically Arab immigrants and come from an Arabic country

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The words lower paradise symbolizes the fact that even though this new country is safer than the mother's homeland and provides better conditions for her, it is still considered a lower place to live compared to her homeland... which indicates how attached and loyal the mother is to her homeland and how nothing can replace it in her eyes. But the word paradise also indicates that she cannot deny the fact that this street and this country are like a safe paradise when she remembers the bombing and war happening in her homeland which makes it impossible to live in.

Also, the fact that the title is basically the name of the street symbolizes the importance of land in the US and how they give value to their land while in the mother's homeland the lands are undervalued and are easily ruined and damaged.

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Words to show skepticism and refusal to accept reality:
refused, convinced, lower, less auspicious, loosely...

Words to indicate sorrow, fear, and memories related to the past:
clutched, bombing, gutted, unrecognizable, escaped, executed, hunched, artillery...

Words to show surrendering and openness to change:
surrender, adjusted, unlocked, in between...

Words to show nostalgia:
the boys who sold cups of creamy sahlab at the market, the Hamdan twins who lived next door....

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At the beginning of the story, the mood was skeptical, refusing, dissatisfied, nostalgic, gloomy, fearful, and sorrowful.
Then towards the end, the mood changes to become more content, hopeful, and surrendering to reality.

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Imagery aims to portray the sensational and emotional experience within the story. The mother described her son's appearance and behaviors, as well as the images of the war... The author used Imagery to make the reader imagine the situation and feel the image she is portraying.

"with his hair grown out and jeans that hung below his waist."
"he clutched the classified ads, thick red circles bleeding through the page "
"no traces of desks, or the painted sea mural, or her books, or their laughter... "

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External conflict: There is a conflict between the mother and her son, they seem to lack communication and face difficulties understanding each other's perspectives. (they merely talk and express their thoughts and feelings). Their conflict arouses from their age gap and the different values they cherish; the mother is loyal to her origin and wants her son to do the same, she is afraid that her son would forget his origin, and traditions and adopts those of the society in the exile country, while the son does not see things as she does, he is moving on and accepting reality which requires him to fit in.

Internal: the mother had an internal conflict with herself, where part of her is refusing the exile country, cannot accept change, and misses and feels belonging to the homeland, and the other is reminded of the awful consequences of the war, is willing to adapt to this new life in the exile country and tries to be hopeful.

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A metonym comes to serve as a synonym for something — a single object embodies an entire institution.

The white roommate, for example, serves as a synonym for the American society as a whole.

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a way of starting a narrative without exposition or contextual information. It launches straight into a scene or action that is already unfolding. And this is how our story starts, the reader finds himself in the middle of an argument between a mother and her son and tries to grasp the situation!

"She refused to exit the car that her son had borrowed from his white roommate..."

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The mother brings memories and moments of her past in her homeland. Flashback undermines the power of time and space for the mother and shows how she is still occupied in the past and is unable to live in the present.

"The bombing had gutted her school building, her classroom unrecognizable."

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A sentence that starts with an independent clause, but then has additional clauses added to it. this is used in the story for contextual or clarifying details, the mother used it to give more details about the war and its terrible effects that are stuck with her.

"The bombing had gutted her school building, her classroom unrecognizable: no traces of desks, or the painted sea mural, or her books, or their laughter."

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Narration: Third person narratorion with the point of view of the mother
The story is told from the mother's perspective, who is an Arab immigrant woman in the USA.
This gives credibility to the mother's character and makes her in control of the events. (The reader has access to the events only through the mother's perspective and conscious)

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The mother is the main and major character in the story. She is a round character, we have access to her memories and inner consciousnesses so she is the character that controls the credibility of the events. She is the original character and her son is like an extension of her... Also, her character is represented positively, while the son's character is not as much... The son's character and his disconnection from his homeland serve as a foil to the mother's loyalty and connection to her homeland.
The mother is the only character that goes under change; we see that at the beginning of the story, she was skeptical towards the exile country and refused to rent an apartment in a street of that country, but at the end, she becomes more open to change and tries to find a way to feel belonging to the US since she does not have another choice...

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The white roommate's character is a minor flat character who does not go under any change or has any voice in the story, he is just mentioned by the mother as a representation of the west and the American society

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The son's character did not go under any change, it did not develop throughout the story.
The son's character is used to serve as a foil for his mother's character.
He is a minor, flat character who does not even have a name. We don't have access to his thoughts or feelings, he belongs to his mother and is displayed through his mother's point of view. He showed despair to settle down, openness to change, and fitting in right from the beginning of the story and did not seem to have certain values to cherish and hold onto.

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Context:
A story of an Arab immigrant mother and her son who had to escape the war in her homeland and come searching for a new start in the USA, however, the mother's mind is still occupied with the past preventing her from feeling belonging to the exile country. The time and place change more than once from the present- USA, to the past- Homeland, because of the mother's flashbacks.

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The mother is proud of her Arabic identity, she is attached to her origin and is refusing to give up her values to fit in or become like "white people" while the son quickly adapted to the US and started looking, speaking, and dressing like them which indicates how desperate he is to settle down in a place, how unattached he is to his Arabic identity and how his values are weak, he is ready to lose his identity and change it to adjust according to the place he is in, which leaves the reader wondering if he even has a specific identity or if these multiple identity crises are the outcome of immigration for young people who did not have much time to grow belonging or adopt certain values related to their homeland, which leaves them feeling lost not belonging to a certain place or having one fixed identity.
This is apparent from the mother's and the son's clothing, the mother is still wearing her Shayla while the son changed his whole style to fit in.

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There is an inter-generational conflict between the mother and her son. Both characters belong to different generations; The mother does not seem to understand the son's behaviors, word choice, and style. and the son does not seem to understand his mother's skepticism or feelings.
from another aspect, the mother does not understand or like how easy it is for her son to integrate into the exile country and forget his origin, while the son does not seem to comprehend his mother's attachment to her land and the difficulties she is facing while trying to adjust to the new life.
The age difference between both characters is what makes each one of them react differently to the situation and what makes them have difficulties communicating and understanding each other.

" “Yamma, it’s only a street name,” her son said in his loosely slipping Arabic. In one hand, he clutched the classified ads, thick red circles bleeding through the page. It was full of bold-faced words and acronyms she did not understand. In his other hand, he thumbed the screen of his mobile."

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The settings of the story shift from the exile country which is the USA and the homeland which is an Arabic country.
Although the mother's homeland is now a place that is hard to live in and the exile country is supposed to be a safer place, the mother still misses her homeland and prefers it over the exile country. This shows how immigrants find difficulties adjusting to foreign countries and feel homesick but in reality, they find it difficult to also feel belonging to their homelands, they are always in between not feeling belonging anywhere.

"An apartment on Lower Paradise Road seemed a less auspicious place to start over."
"Upper or Lower Paradise Road. Surely there was some place for her in between."

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There is a shift in the story between reality and memories. The mother and her son were sitting in their car on Lower Paradise Road in America, this is their reality. However, few lines in the story, the mother disconnects from reality and shifts to her memories of her homeland and the bombing that ruined everything. This indicates how the son is living in reality trying to move on and adapt to the new country and is more concerned with the now while the mother is still living in her memories, stuck in the past missing her homeland, and not accepting reality...

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Our main character, the mother, had experienced war in her homeland and had to leave (escape) her country because of the war. However, in the story, we can still see the awful effect war has on the mother, how it built her character and ruined all of her beautiful memories in her homeland

"The bombing had gutted her school building, her classroom unrecognizable..... Nothing left to imagine what it had once been." "she had remained hunched in a bedroom closet for days when the artillery began."

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The story is about an Arab woman and her son who immigrate from their homeland to the USA in order to start a new life. The story starts with the two Arab immigrants trying to find themselves a new home in the new country they immigrated to.
The mother in a way was forced to immigrate, she escaped her homeland where there was war and bombing undergoing, so in the story, the reader feels the mixed emotions that immigrants feel.

"An apartment on Lower Paradise Road...to start over. "
"The bombing had gutted her school building " "She’d escaped..."