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Part 2, Chapter 8: The View from Above
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
When Nostalgia Nalan steps onto Leila’s balcony for a cigarette, she’s immediately catcalled by a man on the street below. In response, she hurls an ashtray at his feet. Holding Leila’s Zippo lighter—which was once D/Ali’s—Nalan reflects on how she had planned to return it to her friend the next time she saw her. She tells Hollywood Humeyra and Zaynab122 that praying for Leila’s soul isn’t enough; she wants to do something, to take action. Suddenly, it hits her—there might be something they can all do for Tequila Leila, after all.
Nalan’s aggressive response to being catcalled is a physical expression of the rage she feels over Leila’s murder and society’s cold treatment of her death. Normally brave and action-oriented, Nalan feels helpless—she doesn’t know how to support her friend in this final moment. This scene also reveals that Nalan had D/Ali’s Zippo all along—the one Leila was looking for just before she was murdered, and the one D/Ali had handed to Leila just before his death.
Themes
