Chapter 12 – Themes
Danger –“You’ve killed someone! How terrible! Didn’t I please with you?” – “What’s the use when you’ve committed a murder?” (pg. 237-238.)
“They made such a lot of noise to everyone about your past raids that they’ve got all the government forces in the area stirred up against you.” (239)
Betrayal –“You taught me to love reading. You discussed everything with me, as if I were your equal. I was one of your listeners—at the foot f the same tree where the history of my love began—and the times themselves were listening to you, too” (240)
“Are you really the same one? The Rauf Ilwan who owns a mansion? You’re the fox behind the newspaper campaign? You, too, want to kill me, to murder your conscience ad the past as well.” (240)
Revenge – “But I won’t die before I’ve killed you: you’re the number one traitor.” “If there’s going to be any meaning to life—and to death, too—I simply have to kill you” (240)
Love/Acceptance towards Nur – “Her presence dispelled his own gloom and exhaustion, made him ready again to embrace what life had to offer: food, drink, and news.”
“She kissed him, and for the first time, he responded spontaneously, with a sense of gratitude, knowing her now to be the person closest to him for as long as he might live” “He wished she’d never leave.” (241)
March 2, 2009 at 3:12 am
Betrayal – Said’s obvious disregard towards the pleas of Nur show his betrayal of the relationship. “You’ve killed someone!” she said, letting out the words with a wail of despair. “How terrible! Didn’t I plead with you?” (p.237)
Revenge – Said’s revenge is his self-proclaimed penance, and only after that can he be free to live his life. This is characterized by the difference of Said and Nur’s reactions toward his murder.
Nur: “You don’t love me, I know that. But at least we could have lived together until you did love me!”
Said: “But we can still do that”
Nur: “What’s the use when you’ve committed murder?”
(pp. 237-238)