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Isabel: Coast of Florida – 1994, 5 days (1)
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Refugee, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Trauma and Coming of Age
Injustice and Cruelty vs. Empathy and Social Responsibility
Hope vs. Despair
Family, Displacement, and Culture
Invisibility and the Refugee Experience
Summary
Analysis
Mahmoud is instantly awake, looking at the gun pointed at him. Youssef begs the taxi driver not to shoot. The driver demands 300 euros—more than twice what they had agreed to pay the driver. Youssef agrees, handing over 300 euros from what they have. The taxi driver then tells them to get out, and they immediately scramble out of the car.
Again, Gratz shows how Mahmoud and his family face cruelty and a lack of empathy from many people along their path. The taxi driver here tries to take advantage of them when they are at their most vulnerable, when instead the goal should be to aid them.
Themes
Once outside, Mahmoud sinks to the ground in tears. He thinks that he will never forget the fear of being so powerless in that moment. Fatima hugs Mahmoud, and as he cries over all of the events of the past two weeks, he apologizes for giving Hana away. Fatima says that he did the right thing—Hana would have drowned otherwise. Mahmoud promises his mother that he will find Hana.
Gratz again emphasizes how much Mahmoud has had to go through in his life and on his journey. He has to have the maturity not only to make the decision to give his sister away, but then also to deal with the consequences of possibly never seeing her again.
Themes
Youssef tells Mahmoud and Fatima that they’ll have to walk to a nearby bus stop to get to the border. Just then, Mahmoud notices that Waleed had slept through the entire incident. He grows worried about his brother, who has been unfazed through air raids, shoot outs, and taxi holdups.
Mahmoud is not the only one who has been forced to grow up far too early. For Waleed, these circumstances are quickly becoming the norm, and his reaction to the trauma is one of indifference and possibly denial or repression—a tragic consequence of growing up in a traumatic situation.
Themes
Mahmoud and his family are able to catch the late bus to Horgoš, near the Hungarian border. Once there, they see many Syrian refugees collected on the boarder, while the Hungarians are building a fence to keep them out. A group of refugees tries to rush the unfinished fence, screaming that they are not terrorists, and that they just want to go through Hungary to Germany.
Gratz tries to combat many of the prejudices and misunderstandings of both people and governments in the countries through which the refugees are trying to travel. The refugees simply want to make a new home for themselves, and not even in Hungary. They are not criminals, nor are they not violent—yet they are frequently treated with injustice, as in this instance.
Themes
Get the entire Refugee LitChart as a printable PDF.
There are more screams, and Mahmoud and his family are caught up in the surge toward the fence. Though Mahmoud is frightened, he is excited that the refugees are “finally standing up and saying, ‘Here we are! Look at us! Help us!’” But the Hungarians aren’t interested in helping them: as refugees swarm the border, the soldiers start to throw tear gas at them. Mahmoud’s eyes burn and he starts to choke on the gas. He feels as though he is going to die.
Mahmoud again finds optimism in the fact that the refugees can be visible and show the injustice of how they are treated. Yet, unfortunately, this doesn’t prevent the further cruelty of the Hungarian government. There is no reason to be violent toward these unarmed refugees who have come in search of an escape from violence, and by allowing readers to become invested in Mahmoud’s storyline, the novel aims to show how governments tend to lack empathy in situations like this.
Themes
