AI ToolsNew
Tools to make learning and teaching easier
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Marginalization and Belonging
Time, Memory, and Transition
Gender and Power
Tradition and Change
Religion, Political Conflict, and Identity
Summary
Analysis
Ten minutes and twenty seconds after Leila dies, she thinks about her wedding cake. Though she worries her past will eventually tarnish D/Ali’s view of her, he insists that one’s past is entirely separate from their future. He compensates Bitter Ma handsomely to allow Leila to leave the brothel for good, and many spectators from the street gather to watch the sex worker depart her brothel in a wedding gown. Leila’s gown is simpler than the one Zaynab122 predicted years prior, but it exudes a classic, understated beauty. Every morning in their small flat, D/Ali reads aloud from communist pamphlets, attempting to entice Leila into his world of revolution.
Leila’s wedding to D/Ali is a hopeful, bittersweet moment, encapsulating the tension between the pursuit of love and the scars of her past. In contrast to the societal judgment she’s faced, D/Ali loves Leila unconditionally. The onlookers from the street of brothels watching her leave underscore the life—and the home—she is leaving behind to begin anew.
Themes
On May 1, 1977, Leila and D/Ali join hundreds of thousands of others at the International Workers’ Day march in Taksim Square. As Leila observes the crowd of diverse people around her, she notices divisions among these revolutionaries, with different sects shouting and clashing with one another. Without warning, gunfire erupts and rains down from above, as there are snipers posted on the Intercontinental Hotel balconies. Panic ensues and the crowd begins to surge, separating Leila from D/Ali. In the days following the massacre, after endless calls to hospitals and morgues throughout the area, Leila learns that D/Ali was trampled to death in the chaos of the gunfire.
The Taksim Square massacre on International Workers’ Day shatters Leila and D/Ali’s brief moment of marital bliss. The protesters’ infighting builds tension in the scene, foreshadowing the imminent attack by nationalist forces that is ultimately responsible for D/Ali’s death. A day meant for equality, fairness, and camaraderie instead culminates in a focused attack that kills nearly 40 people and injures hundreds more, devastating the city and thwarting the progress of the socialist movement in Turkey.
Themes
Upgrade to unlock the analysis and theme tracking for all of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World!
Get LitCharts A+
