Madeline's Memories and More

Homeless Bird

February 7, 2012

Homeless Bird is a book written by Gloria Whelan, about a girl named Koly living in India. Koly is thirteen and marries a sickly boy named Hari. Koly’s Sass treats her very harshly. Over time Koly finds out that Hari only married her for the dowry. After many months of planning to run away Sass leaves her in Vrindavan. She is shocked, homeless, starving, and scared, but she must find a job and shelter before her few rupees run out. A boy named Raji manages to find her a room at a widows’ home. She gets a nice job and teaches Raji how to read. At the end of the book Raji proposes.

1. In this book Koly has to adapt to many things. The first thing she has to adapt to is living with her cruel Sass, living in a crude home, and doing her endless chores. She learns to only share her thoughts with her sister-in-law, Chandra. Over time she realized that she wouldn’t have friends while she was living with her Sass so she found some joy in taming the bandicoot and playing with a pariah dog. When Sass brought home the tickets to New Delhi and told Koly it was time to pack up and leave she shows that she really had adapted to living with the Mehtas and living in their sloppy home. She says “As unhappy as I had been in my Sass’s house, a thorn of sadness pricked me when it came time to leave.” Also, when Koly was left in Vrindavan she had no choice, but to quickly adapt to her surroundings and do what she had to do to survive. She uses her money wisely, she takes every bit of food she can get, puts herself before others, and keeps the doorstep to herself. Koly has been in many diverse situations so she can adapt to different things quickly.

2. I think the theme for Homless Bird is to never lose hope. Koly never lost hope. When all seems lost, you’ve made a big mistake, or everything goes the wrong way don’t lose hope! If you believe, even in the darkest times, hope is always there. An example from Homeless Bird is when Koly runs out of rupees in Vrindavan.“My rupees were nearly gone, and all I had was the doorstep and the bit of food tossed out by the hand of someone I had never seen.” Koly was just about to lose hope so she went to the railway station. She was walking around when she saw the boy with the rickshaw named Raji. She told him about her problems and Raji found Koly a widows’ home to stay in. This shows that if you always have hope something good will come from your woes. The second theme is trust yourself and be brave while doing so. If you think you should run away, then run away. Believe in your thoughts and go with what your mind tells you to do. A big example of this is from Tagore’s Poems.“There was a flock of birds flying day and night. Among them was one homeless bird, always flying on to somewhere else.” This explains how even if it makes you stand out you should trust yourself. Don’t settle for what the crowd does, settle for what you think you should do. Koly demonstrates this when she hides the earrings and she does her chores badly. Koly is headstrong and follows her gut. In order for Koly to do these things she had to be very brave. There is the easy choice and the right choice. Sometimes you have to be brave to pick the right choice.

3. Gloria Whelan uses many literary devices throughout the book. Literary devices are things such as similes, metaphors, personification, etc. that make the language come alive. Mostly, Gloria Whelan uses comparisons. Comparisons are literary devices that compare one thing to another. Some of my favorite comparisons in Homeless Bird are:

“The mustache is like a mouse’s tail.”

“I shuddered, feeling no better off than the chained monkey and the miserable birds.”

“The thought had been waiting like a scorpion at the edge of my mind. Now it stung me.”

“She was very plump, as though she had been put together with pillows.”

“You wallow like pigs in mud.”

“Maa Kamala stirred us up like a pot of rice.”

“Lying nearby were other widows, their soft sighs and turnings like so many doves fluttering around me.”

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