Brief biography of mohsin hamid was born in Pakistan, but he spent much of his
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| Related Characters Saeed, Nadia Related Themes: Page Number 203 Explanation and Analysis In this passage, Hamid clarifies and expands upon Saeed’s relationship to prayer, a practice to which the young man turns in order to enact a gesture of love for what has gone and would go and could beloved in no other way It’s worth noting Hamid’s use of the word touch in this description of Saeed’s belief in the power of prayer When he prayed he touched his parents Hamid writes, who could not otherwise be touched This image—of Saeed “touch[ing]” his parents—lends itself to the idea of connection, for what is touch if not a physical link between two people. But Saeed’s parents are dead, so the only way he can “touch” them is through prayer, which also inspires in him a feeling that we are all children who lose our parents.” Saeed’s feeling, then, is yet another belief in the power of prayer to unite people. As such, Saeed’s gravitation toward religion is primarily a gravitation toward cohesion and unity, which is why he so desperately wants to express this feeling to Nadia, with whom he finds himself less and less connected. Unfortunately, though, he doesn’t know how to articulate these thoughts, perhaps because he knows Nadia is uninterested in spirituality. Still, though, he’s wrong to think she can’t comprehend his appreciation of unity, for she too seeks this sort of connection, though she does so not by praying, but by embracing multiculturalism and diverse communities. Nonetheless, the couple yet again finds itself unable to transcend its differences, and Saeed refrains from sharing his ideas about prayer and unity with Nadia. But while fear was part of what kept them together for those first few months in Marin, more powerful than fear was the desire that each seethe other find firmer footing before they let go, and thus in the end their relationship did in some senses come to resemble that of siblings, in that friendship was its strongest element, and unlike many passions, theirs managed to cool slowly, without curdling into its reverse, anger, except intermittently. Download 0.56 Mb. Share with your friends:
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