Average people often become pawns in political wars between countries. In these latter days, it mostly happens in the conflicts between the Middle East and West. The story described in the “780 Days of Solitude” started in 2009 in the days of the tensions between the United States of America and Iran and the nuclear question. It was first published in Mother Jones in 2014 and describes the life of three innocent American citizens in the Iran prison and their thoughts for almost a year. This paper aims to discuss the structure of the “780 Days of Solitude” and to reveal its significance for the story and its understanding.
The “780 Days of Solitude” starts with the description of the events that preceded the main story. One of the main characters, Shane, briefly introduces himself, his girlfriend Sarah Shourd, and their friend Josh Fattal and allows the readers to understand that their occupations have nothing to do with Iran-American business and atomic bomb issues and that they are just average American people, the same as most readers. The story itself is written as the diary and is divided into parts; each of them is told by one of the main characters, whose name is written at the beginning of the part. At first, the names are written together with exact days, but then the accuracy starts to disappear, and the final parts have only name as the title. Such structure allows highlighting the flow of time for Shane, Sarah, and Josh; in prison, all days for them are similar, but the beginning and the most important events during the story stick in their minds. The exact date allows the readers to know what they should pay close attention to.
The headings of the first seven parts of the story cover the time period a little over a month since the day of capturing. Shane, Sarah, and Josh describe the process of capturing and their adaptation to prison. These events contain exact dates as refer to more specific issues, for instance, dialogues with interrogators, fast, and hava khori. At this moment of the narration, the characters still believe in the mistake and near release. However, time moves on and nobody saves them, the days pass and run into one another. Shane, Sarah, and Josh start to lose hope, and the diary of their lives becomes a bit more lost in time. Furthermore, each of them gets into the solitude that is unbearable for such social creatures as people. As Shane writes, “Solitary confinement is the slow erasure of who you thought you were” (Bauer et al. 47). Describing these days, Shane describes the thoughts and actions not of the one particular day but his days in whole, and they do not need a specific date. The same continues till the moment of reunion with Josh and “resurrection”; Shane and Josh become alive and their days become exacter. For Sarah, her solitude is more specific, and she perceives it differently. Every day, she thinks about her mother, and her diary has exact dates till the moment she knows that her mother is okay and tries to find her. The next specific day is the one when Shane proposes Sarah, definitely, one of the most important days of their lives. The next events flow one for another till the day of the meeting with mothers, the reporter, and Swiss ambassador. The moment of the release becomes nearer.
The narration of the “780 Days of Solitude” follows the style of a diary that aims to reveal thoughts and emotions of Shane, Sarah, and Josh, as despite the similar feelings, each of them has different reaction and differently perceives the situation. The days that are important for them, bring them happiness and hope, and make them closer to reality have specific dates, while the other ones are described generally as are similar one to another. The last part of the story describes events following the meeting with mothers: the release of Sarah, the following events, and the final releases of Shane and Josh. The “780 Days of Solitude” starts with the hope and ends with its resurrection; it is the main thing that allows such victims as Shane, Sarah, and Josh to struggle and to remain alive.
Works Cited
Bauer, Shane, Fattal, Josh, and Sarah Shourd. “780 Days of Solitude.” The Best American Non-Required Reading 2015. Ed. Adam Johnson and the students of 826 National. Boston, New York: A Mariner Original Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015. 41-67. Print.
