The Surviving Duo

Authors Note’s: In this essay I will be comparing and contrasting the main character Saba in the  book “ Dust Land Blood Red Road” and to Cole in “Touching Spirit Bear.”

In the book “Dust Land” Saba is a girl who is living in the after math of a destroyed world left by the Wreckers. Then as like any other normal day for her, out of the red sky comes a massive thunder storm that nearly kills her and her two other siblings. When they think it was ok to leave their shelter four men come in robes and turbans riding horseback take her older brother and kill their father. Then she is forced to leave her home and survive in the demolished world around her to try and save her brother from death. This story is like another book I had read called “Touching Spirit Bear.” In this story Cole a troubled boy is trying to avoid the fact that he is a criminal on the run. When caught he is put in a program for troubled boys that desperately need help. When he is sent to an island in Alaska and forced to live off the land for one year and survive on his own until he met a spirit bear that helped him get back on the right track. These two stories are related for their survival for not only themselves but for the greater good of others around them.

Their similarities are the Saba and Cole are to see what their actions had affected on other people in their life time. When Saba when to go to save Lou her older brother she burned her house with her father in it so that she had the proper burial for her father so that not only effected her but also her sister as well. Also when Cole was still in school he was known as a bully and got into fights with this guy named Peter who he barely knew. Another similarity was their fight for survival and not only saving themselves but the ones they cared about. When Saba left to go save her brother she had to leave her sister and her aunt’s house because she did not want anything else happen to any other family member. Cole didn’t want to go to the island but he didn’t want to be hurting anyone else that he met that he wanted to be friends with.

Although they may want to do better for themselves they also do have some differences in their stories. Even though Saba is trying to survive, she is doing it for her brother and not for herself and Cole is only trying to fight for himself and no other people than himself.

Even though these characters are from different books, I believe that they are fighting for the same reasons. And just maybe they will make it through this fight for life.