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
Sitting around Leila’s table, Nostalgia Nalan declares that they should go to the Cemetery of the Companionless that very night and exhume Leila’s body. The others are initially shocked, but Nalan manages to convince them it’s the right thing to do. When Zaynab122 argues that Leila’s body no longer matters and it’s her soul they should be concerned with, Nalan explains that, as a trans woman, she deeply understands the importance of the human body, and it matters dearly. She recounts the time Leila saved her life after a violent hate crime, saying that now, it’s their turn to save Leila.
Nalan’s commitment to honoring Leila’s physical form is rooted in her own experience of feeling born into the wrong body. While the soul may hold greater importance to the religious and spiritual, like Humeyra and Zaynab122, Nalan’s perspective emphasizes the significance of the human body in death. This scene thus highlights the differing worldviews within the group, each of which is ultimately respected in the novel.
Themes
Hollywood Humeyra likens Nalan’s plan to the karmic cycle—how, if you claim to love someone, that love will eventually be tested. One by one, they all agree to go to the cemetery—even Sabotage Sinan, despite his severe anxiety, and Jameelah, who’s sick and battling a lupus flare-up. Sabotage suggests they bury Leila next to D/Ali, and the group envisions erecting a headstone inscribed with a poem by Pablo Neruda or Nâzim Hikmet—two of Leila and D/Ali’s favorites. Though Zaynab122’s faith makes her wary of this plan, she accompanies her friends, hoping to provide spiritual protection along the way.
This section reaffirms the group’s commitment to honoring Leila, even though it now means breaking the law and risking personal safety. Despite physical and mental limitations—and, in Zaynab’s case, religious hesitations—all the friends agree to participate. Their idea of inscribing a headstone with poetry by Neruda or Hikmet, writers known for their political activism, reflects how well they know their friend and how important D/Ali’s influence was on her life.
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+
