Home Fire Themes

Home Fire is a contemporary retelling of Sophocles’s Antigone, focusing on two British Muslim families in contemporary England. The first family is the Pashas: 28-year-old Isma and her 19-year-old twin siblings, Aneeka and Parvaiz. The second family central to the story is the Lones: Karamat Lone, his Irish-American wife, Terry, and their 24-year-old son, Eammon. While both families have roots in Pakistan and both consider themselves to be fully British…

In Home Fire, family members deeply love one another and they often go to extreme lengths to ensure their loved ones are protected. Karamat Lone, the father of one of the central families, ensures this for his son, Eamonn; Isma Pasha (the head of the other central family) does the same for her younger sister, Aneeka; and Aneeka looks out for her twin brother, Parvaiz. Yet frequently, what characters covertly…

Each of the characters in Home Fire has a unique perspective—a different way of engaging with their faith or race as well as different key experiences that shaped them growing up. Yet Shamsie illustrates how her characters are often viewed by the public and by each other not as individuals, but as representatives of their religion, gender, race, nationality, or some combination thereof: Karamat as a politically calculating “traitor” of his faith; Parvaiz as a…