ThemeFamily and Relationshi

ps

In the style of a bad

American soapie

The moral dilemma!

Does one sacrifice one's family for the sake of the larger good, or

protect one's family at all costs?

Family

Love

Close friendships

…A time of crude savagery

Mother & Son – Home &Away-the soap opera

• Even fifteen years of exile cannot withdraw it.

• A sons intimacy with his mother “has since occupied the innermost memory I have of love”

• A mother’s love causes her to send him away to protect him from the regime.

Moosa• He protects Suleiman in exile• Will he overcome his displaced survivor

guilt?–  Faraj is alive because Najwa intervened and

asked for Ustath Jafer’s help–Moosa sees this as betrayal – other’s have

given their live for the resistance– “cant bear looking at him…. The betrayal in

his eyes” (p207)

• He leaves Libya and never sees Faraj again

Ustath Rashid

• An undying loyalty for a best friend

• They Die a Brothers death

Parents and the Single Child

• ”woman was no longer good”

• “Mother and father were objecting to Gods will”

• BUT they

• ”reinvent life and make black days rosy”

Then why oh why…

• did his parents send Suleiman to Egypt.

• “in every direction I turned but they weren’t there.”

Family…the good, the bad & the ugly

• Even the bad relationships such as Najwa’s family who create her “black” life

• And the unpleasant neighbours she forces herself to be ingratiated towards

When Faraj Returns …

• Family is made to work (On the surface) • Um Massoud and Ustath Jafar are united

despite their apparent distaste for each other

• Moosa and Jude Yaseen (the father of the “disappointed gaze”)remain close because they are family– Faraj’s unofficial ‘brother’ takes in Suleiman

and all that entails

“At a time like this we should stay together”

They pushed me away

as they cemented their own sense of family- ultimately

exiling me to Egypt, something I

find it hard to reconcile

This is not a quote, this is what I think Suleiman would be thinking

Matar does this for us with Suleiman’s final words…. “Mama, Mama”