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Escape and Catharsis
Themes and Colors
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Mrs Mahmood, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
“Mrs Mahmood” examines the idea that unfulfilled dreams and regrets often come back to haunt people, especially if they’ve neglected their old desires. As Mr. Mahmood remembers the day that his success as a young athlete came to an end (due to his decision to quit running after an unsuccessful athletics meeting), he recalls feeling a particular emotional exhaustion. Later in the story, when Mr. Mahmood accidentally makes eye contact with a successful Olympian in his shop, he describes himself, again, as feeling weak and tired. These two instances of Mr. Mahmood’s sudden yet strong fatigue link these experiences together, and the Olympian seems to represent the future that Mr. Mahmood once envisioned for himself but was ultimately unable to achieve. Seeing someone else live the life he once wanted, Mr. Mahmood is transported back to the day that he quit running, reliving the same emotions of failure, disappointment, and exhaustion. It’s also important to note that the Olympian visits Mr. Mahmood’s shop to look for shoes for a young boy, whom Mr. Mahmood assumes to be his son. Mr. Mahmood, on the other hand, struggles with feelings of inadequacy throughout the story as he imagines having children with Isobel, who wants kids. Making eye contact with the Olympian, then, is all the more difficult for Mr. Mahmood, and this brief interaction represents the story’s idea that one’s abandoned dreams can often seem inescapable later in life, as regret has a funny way of manifesting itself in everyday life. But the story doesn’t cast Mr. Mahmood’s story in a completely hopeless light—after all, Mr. Mahmood’s managerial role in a sports shop and his satisfaction helping people find the right athletic shoes perhaps illustrates that his old dreams haven’t completely died but have, instead, transformed to better fit his actual life. In this way, the story explores the pain of regret while also hinting at the small ways that faded dreams and aspirations can still add meaning to life.
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Dreams, Regret, and Self-Discovery ThemeTracker
The ThemeTracker below shows where, and to what degree, the theme of Dreams, Regret, and Self-Discovery appears in each chapter of Mrs Mahmood. Click or tap on any chapter to read its Summary & Analysis.
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Dreams, Regret, and Self-Discovery Quotes in Mrs Mahmood
Below you will find the important quotes in Mrs Mahmood related to the theme of Dreams, Regret, and Self-Discovery.
Mrs Mahmood
Quotes
Sometimes I’ll look at the young, wonder whether they are headed for great things. This one seemed to soar like a gazelle, he did not waver on his feet… I like that in a customer, someone who really knows who he wants.
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Perhaps it is odd to see an older man puffing down the street. The clumsy sweep and sway of it, the heavy body bounding along. All I know is that very few people were looking at the boy, but all eyes managed to fix on me. Paths cleared. People stood back.
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There comes a time when you realise all the effort you’ve put in – all those early mornings, the rigorous diet, the training, pushing yourself to the limit – amounts to nothing…I never picked up another pair of running shoes, never stepped onto another track.
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I could feel suppressed rage seeping from my chest, like a disturbed wound. I raised my hand, then slowly brought it down again and scratched the back of my neck…The boy didn’t even cringe. He showed no emotion whatsoever. I didn’t like to see that in children, coldness, valves already shut off.
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Isobel once said I was abrupt with people, I cut them off, that underneath a warm exterior I harboured a cold nature.
“When?” I demanded. “When am I like this? Examples please.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she laughed. “All the time, really. In a way.”
At the back of my mind I feared she was thinking about having children again, but she did not mention it.
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At one stage he caught me looking and I turned away. I think I lost my nerve then. I don’t remember, I just felt weak. I fled into the office and sat staring at the paperwork. Half an hour may have passed. I thought I should telephone Isobel at the hospital. “Who?” she would say. “Which Olympics?”
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It is a helpless feeling to know that no matter how hard you run, however much you exert yourself, you are never going to move faster than this, overtake the man in front. Perhaps I understood that then, when I was seventeen. I could, in a minor way, have grasped something early on: that there is a moment or a series of moments in life when you must wear a different pair of shoes, walk in another direction from the one you had planned, and however well you succeed in your pursuits, there will always be an element of regret.
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