Elizabeth Laird’s A Little Piece of Ground shows that resilience and endurance are required to survive in a conflict zone, such as the one portrayed in the book, and that endurance leads to resilience. Elizabeth Laird portrays that enduring Israeli actions has led to development of resilience in Karim, Hassan, and Hopper. This development took place in Karim’s experiences in a conflict zone, Hassan’s endurance, and Hopper’s losses.
Karim’s experiences and endurance in Ramallah under Israeli occupation has led to his development of resilience. Karim, being the main character, has endured many events and Israeli actions, which in turn has developed resilience in him. One such event was the embarrassment of his father, Hassan Aboudi, and other Palestinians by the Israeli soldiers. When talking to a …show more content…
However, resilience has developed in Hopper, due to his endurance of the loss of his brother and his house. When Hopper was telling Karim and Joni about his brother, Salim, he said
“‘She said, “Pick it up,” and he didn’t, didn’t move at all. I was dead scared. I knew something bad would happen”… “You, come here!” and he took his card and said, “It’s impossible to read this. It’s covered in mud. It’s not valid any more. Go back. You can’t go through.” And then it was awful. It was so awful’” (Laird 107).
When Hopper said that he was ‘dead scared’, it showed that he was not as resilient as he was now, instead he was scared. The fake bomb was his revenge for the arrest of his brother, which indicated his resilience. Enduring that arrest and the events that took place that day, put him on the path towards resilience. However, this was not the only act of endurance that impacted his resilience. The theft of his house in Ramle, Israel also influences his development of resilience. When Joni mentions that Palestinians were not allowed into Ramle, Hopper’s grandfather