Middleeast Essay, Research Paper

Across the world millions of people lose trust for one another everyday. Usually trust is broken by people we do not know. Yet, people can also be betrayed by someone close, such as a friend or family member. When one?s trust is betrayed by a friend or family member they will be devastated. Should one lend his trust just to have it shattered? People should never trust their family because their hearts will undoubtedly be broken.

Everybody lies, even family. Hanan al-Shaykh shows an example of this in her story ?The Persian Carpet.? In the story, the mother of a girl divorces her husband. Before she moves out she steals one of the family?s most valuable possessions, a carpet, but she blames an old blind person for stealing it. About a month later when the daughter visits her mother, she notices the carpet in her living room. The daughter is astonished and heart broken. ?I looked down at the Persian carpet trembling with burning rage? (al-Shaykh, 2). The daughter could not believe her mother lied to her. The mother?s act changed her relationship with her daughter forever. Before the daughter found out she had been lied to she wanted to see her mother more than anything. However, afterwards she says, ?I wished the moment of meeting my mother could be undone? (al-Shaykh, 2). She wished she had never seen her mother again. Because of the trust in her mother, she must now suffer.

Children should always be ready to be betrayed by their parents so they are not devastated when it happens. ?The Button? by Mahdokht Kashkuli describes a child who was sent away and grief stricken because he trusted his parents to nurture him. In the story the child?s father sends him to an orphanage so he can support the rest of his family. The family needed one less mouth to feed. The boy said to himself in the story, ?why are they going to make me the one less mouth to feed? ( Kashkuli, 1). The boy could not understand why they were sending him away. He was devastated when he heard the news, ?My pillow was soaked with tears? ( Kashkuli, 1). If he was not surprised to be sent away he would not be so upset. The child believed that his parents would always protect him, however, he found out the hard way.

Another instance where a family member broke the trust with their child is in the true story of two boys, Cornelius and Lattie Abraham. Many children trust their parents to take care of them, however, this story shows that the children should not trust them. If the parents were not trusted these two boys would both be alive and well. When Lattie was four and Cornelius six their parents started to get into drugs. Soon enough the drugs started to affect the children. When the parents could not find money for the drugs they would take their anger out on the kids. Cornelius and Lattie began to get beaten. They would beat the children with sticks and fists; they burned them with cigarettes, and stuck them with sewing needles. Young Lattie was beaten to death at the age of five and Cornelius? life was traumatized forever. If the parents were never trusted two lives would have been saved.

One should not trust their family so they have nothing to lose. These three examples show were trust was broken and people were overwhelmed. If these people had not trusted family members they would not have been heartbroken. To sum it all up lending trust can only lead to despair.