Paper Bird and Gilbert's Ghost Train.

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Paper Bird and Gilbert's Ghost Train

The two novels I'm comparing are Paper bird and Gilbert's ghost train. Paper bird is the portrayal of a struggle of a boy, Adam, through amid poverty and violence to keep some semblance of normality and love in the life of his family. Gilbert's Ghost Train is about Martin and his dying brother, Dally, having to face up to the facts of life and death and learns to accept it with the help of the mysterious Gilbert Cutler.

As a first impression, it appears as if these two novels don't have similar themes but as you learn more it turns out that they do.

Struggle is the theme of the stories; Adam physically struggles to support his family while Martin emotionally struggles to accept the facts of life and death. In the paper bird Adam had to overcome tremendous problems and fear that prevents him from going to his job as a newspaper seller. His fear involves the Casspirs (South African police) and mainly the gang who threatened anybody who went to work and will harm them terribly if the do. He also encounters unlucky problems such as a bad fever. Adam's problems are physical but Martins are emotional. Martin constantly asks questions with no answers about life and death and about his ding brother.

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Adam and Martin are victims of struggle. Eventually they overcome this at the end of the stories. But the did it with the help of certain individuals.

In the Paper Bird, when Adam was very ill his newspaper selling colleagues, Old Hansie and Taffie, offered him a place to stay. Adam was too ill to work which means he won't be getting any money, but then Old Hansie and Taffie offered their earned money even when they too were very poor. During Adam's stay with his colleagues, Adam's relationship with them became stronger that "They became his ...

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