Behind The Beautiful Forever Analysis

Words: 835
Pages: 4

An assumption within life is that poverty stricken areas have an absence of hope and therefore the inhabitance live for pure survival. Quite a misconception, as in the novel Behind the beautiful forever, captures a rather emotional span of three years of life in the Indian slums. Katherine Boo’s Book bestows upon the reader an insiders look of the importance of hope and suffering as constructive forces within a slum, but also induces a humane quality of these people and not one of savage survival. Hope and suffering are emotions that every human is capable of beholding, and the book accuses the reader of viewing people of low income as insensible. Hope of acceptance, survival, and improved lifestyle are some examples of varieties of …show more content…
To look at this claim in detail the book provides two families that can be utilized to search find the realization within. The Husains and the Waghekars to families of wealth at the beginning of the book, but by the conclusion are at differing status in Annawadi. The Waghekars have a steady climb from front to back of the book. Asha has a goal to become slum lord and climb to power and she succeeds in her pursuit of power. Whether her methods were ethical or corrupt were not a major factor for her as long as she reaches her goal. Suffering was not a major theme of her life and therefore hope is not as well. The Husains go through a false conviction and suffer from the corruption of the legal system. Beatings, harassment, blackmail, and lies trap the Husains as the family suffer through in hope that the charges would be dropped. Finally at the end the Husains are found “not guilty” (Boo 239). Suffering has allowed them to hope for something, to be liberated from their sufferings. Hope provides to be a constructive force in the Annawadi slum because it is a linked to suffering, which in the Husains position bonds the family together. The family comes together to make an income, while trying to apprehend three family