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Chapter 7 – Aneeka
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Home Fire, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Islam, Nationality, and Identity.
Familial Love, Protection, and Betrayal
Fathers, Sons, and Inheritance
Stereotypes vs. Individuality
Summary
Analysis
Karamat walks along the Thames, sipping coffee and pondering the events of the prior few days—Eamonn’s earnest pleadings that Aneeka truly loved him and the story of Aneeka going to Pakistan to retrieve Parvaiz. He was shocked at her statement that she was looking for justice in Pakistan, as he understands how much his parents gave up in order to leave Pakistan and find greater opportunity and dignity in Britain. A brown-skinned runner approaches Karamat on the Thames, and the head of his security detail grows visibly anxious.
In the final part of the novel, the perspective shifts to Karamat Lone. This allows Shamsie to provide more nuance to his character as well. Up to this point, he has been assumed to be a calculating and self-serving politician, but here it is revealed that so much of his pride in his nationality comes from the fact that his parents came to Britain for more opportunity than they could find anywhere else. Like all the other characters, he’s drawn to the place that feels most like a true home.
Themes
Karamat then receives a call from Eamonn, who has been staying with friends for the past few days, ever since he was “restrained from returning to the arms of that manipulative whore” and his “hysteria” had passed. Meanwhile, in response to the release of the statement of Eamonn’s involvement with Aneeka, Terry moved some of his clothes to the basement bedroom, claiming he could have protected Eamonn. On the phone, Eamonn apologizes to Karamat for how he acted the other day.
Karamat’s perceived betrayal of Eamonn splits his family in ways he did not predict. In being transparent, he was hoping to soften the blow of the news stories that would inevitably emerge (and some stories in fact argued that Eamonn had immediately turned on Aneeka upon learning of her intentions), but this comes at the cost of his wife’s anger.
Themes
Eamonn explains that from the outside, Karamat’s actions look bad. Eamonn reminds Karamat that he said he would help Aneeka in return for Eamonn’s not contacting her. Karamat tells Eamonn that he has stationed police outside Aneeka’s home, hasn’t released videos that Parvaiz worked on, and hasn’t had Aneeka locked up. Eamonn questions how not locking someone up without reason is doing someone a favor. Karamat says, “please don’t try to develop a spine. You weren’t built for it.” Karamat asks if Aneeka gave him his first “really great blow job,” and tells him that there are “better ones out there.” Eamonn hangs up.
Karamat believes he is protecting his son from the disastrous decisions he has made, believing that Eamonn fell victim to Aneeka’s manipulations. But in using crass language and in demeaning Aneeka based on stereotypes, he only serves to drive a wedge further between himself and Eamonn (and also between himself and Terry, when Eamonn relays this language later). Thus, what is meant to be protection is again interpreted as a betrayal of trust. Karamat’s accusations here also mirror Sophocles’s Antigone, in which Creon accuses his son Haemon of naively falling under the spell of an attractive woman. In return, Haemon accuses Creon of being an unjust ruler, which is roughly what Eamonn says to Karamat here.
Themes
Midmorning, a picture ends up on Twitter of Aneeka, dressed in white for mourning, sitting in a park. Press flocks to her. In his office, Karamat turns on the Pakistani news. Karamat’s assistant James informs him that there are people who think he wants to revoke Aneeka’s citizenship as well as Parvaiz’s. When Karamat asks what he thinks, James explains that he thinks that’s a bad idea, as people will think it’s because of Eamonn. Karamat disagrees, asking if they know what Aneeka might be planning next. As they watch, footage is shown of an ambulance pulling up and men carrying out an unadorned casket.
It is here that Karamat’s distaste for Parvaiz’s actions truly starts to bleed into discrimination against Muslims in general. Despite the fact that Aneeka has committed no crimes, her faith and her affiliation with Pakistan allows Karamat to turn policy against her and to essentially revoke her British citizenship without cause.
Themes
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Aneeka then pulls the lid off the casket and pulls at each side until it collapses. Wind starts to pick up and her hijab falls off, revealing her long hair. She looks at Parvaiz’s body. A dust storm arrives and the wind howls around her. Aneeka then addresses the cameras, saying that in stories of tyrants, bodies are kept from their families, “their heads impaled on spikes, their corpses thrown into unmarked graves.” She asks the prime minister for justice—to let her take her brother home.
Aneeka is trying to make a political statement, by illustrating the injustice of the British government disrespecting one of its citizens on the grounds of faith. But at the same time there is a deeply personal component to what she is doing, in that all she wants is to be with the brother that she failed to protect. Instead, he is being turned into a political pawn rather than being treated as an individual.
Themes
The Prime Minister responds to Aneeka’s plea in a session of Parliament, declaring that Parvaiz left Britain to join people who follow the practices of “heads impaled on spikes. Bodies thrown into unmarked graves.” The Members of Parliament agree with his statement, and Karamat is lauded for his commitment to doing the right thing.
The Prime Minister uses Aneeka’s language and turns it against her, creating an even deeper division between Britain and Aneeka, whom they paint as being opposed to Britain. Yet again, Aneeka is treated like a terrorist even though she has not committed any crimes.
Themes
Later, Karamat makes a phone call to the Pakistan High Commissioner. They speak in both Urdu and English. Karamat blames the HC for allowing the body to be brought to the park. The HC says they had no grounds to refuse Aneeka’s request, and they have no reason to intervene on Britain’s behalf. He explains that people are embracing her as a woman who has stood up to a powerful government that has “very bad PR in the matter of Muslims.” The HC says he will not get involved, and he hangs up.
The treatment of Aneeka by the Pakistani government reinforces her conflict with the British government. The Pakistani government recognizes that she is being mistreated simply because she is Muslim, and it is taking up her cause—even though she is not really a citizen of Pakistan—in order to send a message to the British government.
Themes
In Pakistan, people have begun to help Aneeka by delivering slabs of ice to keep Parvaiz’s body preserved. Tabloids continue to write articles about her, asking, “Is This the Face of Evil?” and noting that she has been called “slag,” “terrorist spawn,” and “enemy of Britain.” As Karamat watches the news, he understands that he doesn’t have to strip her of her citizenship to stop her from getting what she wants, as her British passport was confiscated when she tried to join her brother in Istanbul. He thinks, “Let her continue to be British; but let her be British outside Britain.”
It is telling that the tabloids are actually turning in Aneeka’s favor, recognizing the racist and sexist stereotypes that she has faced by the news outlets, when really all she wants to do is bury her brother at home. Yet Karamat now even refuses to let her return to Britain; he recognizes the absurdity of saying that she can be “British outside Britain” and how that essentially leaves her without a homeland, but he still sticks to his choice.
Themes
Karamat returns home that evening following a difficult interview in which he affirmed that people who betrayed their British identity could not do so without consequences. He said that the British people support him, including the majority of British Muslims. The news anchor was surprised, nothing that there seems to be a common view that he hates Muslims. He replied, “I hate the Muslims who make people hate Muslims.”
Again, there is some nuance to what Karamat is saying—that he dislikes people who invite others to discriminate against Muslims like him. But he does so at the cost of holding onto his faith at all; he believes that he is forced to choose a national identity over his faith. Yet in reality, perhaps Shamsie’s argument is that if he were able to have a foot in both identities, there might not be so much conflict between those two groups.
Themes
Karamat comes into the bedroom, but Terry immediately tells him to leave. She says that she spoke to Eamonn and he relayed what Karamat said about the blow job, asking him if he’s “an expert on the better ones out there.” He returns downstairs to the kitchen, and soon after his security detail comes in, explaining that a woman has been circling the block—Isma Pasha. She said that she wanted to speak with him, and he lets her come in.
Karamat’s words come back to bite him; he believed his words would show Eamonn the error of his ways, but instead they have largely turned his family against him.
Themes
Isma comes in; when Karamat offers her wine she politely refuses. He evaluates her plainness and her hijab, noting that she is “Probably a virgin.” He is surprised at himself for these thoughts. Isma asks to go to Pakistan without being stopped, so that she can take care of her sister. He asks, in return, for her to convince Aneeka to bury Parvaiz in Pakistan. Isma says that she won’t be able to convince Aneeka; she only wants to be with her. This reminds Karamat of language that Eamonn has used about Aneeka, of only wanting to be with her.
Karamat’s thoughts about Isma again touch on the stereotypes that plague her and Aneeka. He compares both sisters to this idea of a conservative Muslim woman, and he finds Isma to be someone who conforms more readily to that image. Isma is an individual, and she has shown that she is interested in sex, and yet Karamat can only view her based on a type—even if the strength of his own judgmental thoughts alarms him.
Themes
Karamat texts James asking if Eamonn has used his passport in the last few days, then returns to his conversation with Isma. Karamat thinks that she is a “reminder of a world he’d lost.” Karamat explains to her that “if there is an Almighty and He sends His angel Jibreel to lift up [her] brother,” that god would not let Parvaiz and Aneeka enter. Isma quietly rebukes him for using such dramatic language about two 19-year-olds. Then Karamat receives a call back from James. Isma asks again if Karamat will stop her from going to Pakistan. He says he will not. When she leaves, he thinks of Eamonn—“a son who was moving in the opposite direction of home, burning bridges in his wake, a trail of fire in the sky.”
The final description of the chapter is another nod to Greek myths: this time to Phaethon, who tried to drive the chariot of his father, the sun god Helios. Phaethon was unable to control the horses, however, and drove alternately too high (freezing the Earth) or too low (burning the Earth). Zeus was then forced to strike Phaethon down with a thunderbolt. This allusion again underscores the hubris of a son in attempting to live up to his father, and it foreshadows his demise in doing so.
Themes
