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Chapter 7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
The chapter is narrated from Aneeka’s perspective and focuses on the aftermath of Parvaiz’s death, about which readers learn retrospectively. It becomes clear that when Farooq realized that Parvaiz was trying to escape, he quickly found him at the steps to the British consulate in Istanbul and shot him from his car. In the meantime, Aneeka, still trying to fly out to Istanbul and meet her brother, was held up by the security, and she had to come back home. The news of a drive-by shooting outside the British consulate in Istanbul quickly circulated in the media, which stated that “a terror attack has not been ruled out” (243). The information about Parvaiz was also disclosed, and he was described as “the latest name in the string of Muslims from Britain who have joined ISIS” (243). Because Farooq hasn’t been identified, the media assumed that Parvaiz was killed by a representative of a rival jihadi group.
When British journalists ask the Home Secretary to comment, he reminds them about the decision he made soon after taking office to revoke the citizenship of all dual nationals who have left Britain to join ISIS. Therefore, because Parvaiz was a citizen of Britain and Pakistan, he is denaturalized, which means that the UK won’t repatriate his body and instead it will be sent to Pakistan for burial. Although the British public applauds this policy of the Home Secretary, this decision makes the Pasha family suffering even worse.
Isma flies back to London quickly after receiving the news of Parvaiz’s death from Aunty Naseem, yet when she tries to comfort Aneeka, telling her that “[they] will always have each other” (241), Aneeka still doesn’t let go of her bitter feelings towards her sister. She feels that “Isma had never been ‘always’; ‘always’ stretched both forward and back, womb to tomb, ‘always’ was only Parvaiz” (242). The family’s torment is further intensified when Karamat discloses to the press that Aneeka had seduced his son with the intention of bringing “her evil brother back into Britain” (259). The tabloids quickly pick up on the sex scandal and give Aneeka a nickname “Knickers” while calling Parvaiz “Pervy.”
After the news agencies label Parvaiz as a “terrorist” (255) and “Muslim fanatic” (260), Isma comes out to journalists and reads a statement where she thanks the Pakistan High Commission for their help in sending Parvaiz’s body to Pakistan for burial, and assures the press that neither her nor Aneeka are planning to travel there for the funeral. Aneeka, on the contrary, stays away from the media and feels outraged that she can’t bury her brother in his homeland. She goes to Pakistan “for justice” (262), although she is warned that women are not allowed to attend funerals.
Once Aneeka arrives in Karachi, she is greeted by her cousin, who doesn’t hide his contempt for her and Parvaiz, and emotionally accuses them of jeopardizing future prospects for his family members because of their affiliation. Aneeka makes plans to receive Parvaiz’s body, although the cousin assures her that she won’t be able to come to the funeral.
Chapter 7 Analysis
In this chapter, Shamsie changes her style of writing to express Aneeka’s deeply personal yet public agony. The style becomes more poetic, and Shamsie focuses on Aneeka’s feelings more than on her actions and words. In this way, the author tries to foreground Aneeka’s anguish and sense of grief after losing her twin brother. This attention to Aneeka’s inner state also serves as partial justification for her manipulative behavior toward Eamonn, whom she wanted to use to bring Parvaiz back home safely. Although even early in the novel it becomes clear that the twins share a special bond, Aneeka’s sorrow after Parvaiz’s death, which seems to be deeper than the despair she felt after losing her grandparents and her mother, demonstrates that she and her brother were so close they almost fused.
Shamsie’s decision to intersperse third-person narration from Aneeka’s perspective with excerpts from tabloid newspapers foregrounds the role of mass media in the book. Early in the novel, attention from the British media and their covering of Karamat’s career becomes one of the reasons why Eamonn goes to the USA. In this chapter, Shamsie goes even further and gives voice to the tabloids, thus offering their perspective on the situation. Mirroring Sophocles’ Antigone, Shamsie replaces the role of the chorus with the British press to adapt the tragic play for the contemporary setting.
Parvaiz’s death in Raqqa also becomes a litmus test for Pasha’s family members and friends, who have to make a choice whether to stay loyal to the Pashas or side with the media and their representation of the family. On the one hand, they are scared that their affiliation will present them in a negative light and make the authorities question their loyalty to the state. On the other hand, many of them have known Parvaiz for a long time before he joined ISIS, and they see a jarring dissonance between their impression of Parvaiz and the image of him portrayed in the media. Yet it takes great courage to counteract the dominant and widely supported narrative that Parvaiz was an extremist and a terrorist, who from a young age was “allowed to idolize the father who fought with Britain’s enemies” (256).
Even those from the Pashas’ circle of friends and relatives who knew how distant the siblings were from their father don’t attempt to paint a different picture of Parvaiz, and Gladys, a neighbor and long-time family friend, becomes the only one who speaks out to the press, publicly declaring that Parvaiz is not the terrorist the media is portraying him to be. This foregrounds a moral dilemma that immigrants often face in their interaction with the state: whether to stay obedient and silent, even against their better judgment or to resist the state when it turns against its people.
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