Brief biography of mohsin hamid was born in Pakistan, but he spent much of his
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| It’s noteworthy that Nadia steels herself upon seeing Saeed at her door, willing herself not to breakdown in front of him. It seems in this moment that she wants to build divisions between herself and the world (including Saeed), ultimately doing so as away of protecting her emotions. Of course, this desire to wall herself in makes sense, given that her personal boundaries have just been thoroughly invaded and violated. Upstairs, Nadia tries again to convince Saeed to have sex with her, not because she feels particularly sexy but because she [wants] to cauterize the incident from outside the bank in her memory Once again, Saeed refuses her advances, reminding her of his desire to wait. Are you saying you want to get married she asks, and when he confirms this, she says, Tome Once it’s clear this is the case, she feels a great tenderness well up in her for him but she merely says, I don’t know He accepts this, kissing her before he leaves. Stopping him on his way out, she gives him a black robe so he can come over whenever he wants. After he’s gone, though, her happiness fades as she listens to the demolition blows of distant artillery, the unmaking of buildings, large-scale fighting having resumed somewhere.” Nadia’s yearning to cauterize the incident that took place outside the bank by having sex with Saeed stands in contrast to her initial reaction upon seeing him, which was to steel herself against showing any emotion. However, this desire actually makes sense, for she wants to have sex with Saeed not necessarily as away of connecting, but as away of putting the fiasco at the bank out of her mind. This shows once again that she approaches sexual activity in a much more casual manner than Saeed does, ultimately leading to yet another conversation about how he wants to get married before making love. As Saeed ventures home, a brave man not far from Nadia’s neighborhood stands in the light of his phone’s flashlight listening to the same gunshots as Nadia. He’s in front of a door, “a door black even in the dimness a door from which another man is slowly emerging. The brave man waits and listens for sounds coming from the stairwell, touching a pistol in his pocket. He is, Hamid notes, excited and ready to die though he doesn’t plan on dying but instead plans on living and doing great things The man before him—now fully in the room—quivers on the floor while regaining his strength, a knockoff Russian assault rifle by his side When he stands up, the brave man brings him into the stairwell. As the brave man returns to his post by the black door, the second man joins the fighting outside within the hour.” This scene is yet another vignette of somebody emerging from an unsuspecting door. This one, however, seems to provide a vague explanation as to how the radical militants are gaining such a pervasive holdover the city they’re entering it in mysterious and secretive ways that are hard to track, somehow crossing the country’s borders and eluding the government checkpoints that Nadia and Saeed encounter whenever they travel through the streets. Of course, this makes combat even more difficult, as the militants most likely also find equally mystifying ways of escaping battle when necessary. Get hundreds more LitCharts at www.litcharts.com ©2018 LitCharts LLC www.LitCharts.com Page 30 Radical militants continue to ravage Saeed and Nadia’s city. One day when Nadia passes her family’s house, she sees that it looks deserted and wonders if her parents and sister have perhaps fled. The next time she walks by, the house has been “crushed by the force of a bomb that weighed as much as a compact automobile and for the rest of her life, she wonders in vain what happened to her family. During this time, Saeed’s boss is forced to go out of business, tearfully promising his employees that they’ll have jobs if the agency ever reopens. Likewise, Nadia’s office stops giving out paychecks, and so the workers slowly trickle out. Download 0.56 Mb. Share with your friends:
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