Zeitoun

Isaac King 803

My book, Zeitoun by Dave Eggers, involved many social action themes.  Zeitoun is the true story of a man, Zeitoun, who stayed behind when Katrina hit New Orleans.  He put his canoe in his yard just in case the water got high enough.  When the levees broke he realized his potential to save lives.  The next day he went out in his canoe and saved many lives. Later on, he found friends who had also stayed through the storm.  Together his band of four went around saving dozens of lives.  That is until they were wrongfully imprisoned.  They were arrested for looting and suspected terrorism.  The latter was for the sole reason of their Arabic descent.  “Zeitoun” is a book that exposes the social disaster that occurred in post Katrina New Orleans.

One of the social action themes presented by Dave Eggers was the neglect of the citizens of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.  In multiple scenes in the book, Zeitoun and his friends were completely ignored by military vehicles.  This is the reason that they had to take matters into their own hands. Another social action theme is the racially based arrest of Zeitouns group.  They were illegally jailed essentially only for being Arabic.  Zeitoun was in jail for one month, but others in his group were imprisoned for up to 6 months.

Dave Eggers depicts the story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun within social context.  He shows what was wrong with the post Katrina society in New Orleans.  The corrupt and racist nature of the police and the neglect of citizens in peril.