Keys Symbol Analysis

Keys in The Beekeeper of Aleppo symbolize the scarcity of true safe places in the world. This symbol first appears in the courtyard of the bed and breakfast when Mohammed asks Nuri for help finding the key because he wants to “get out.” When Nuri turns, the tree in the courtyard is full of golden keys which he collects in a bowl, only to find them turned to flower blossoms the next morning. This scene immediately associates keys with escape while simultaneously characterizing that escape as elusive. Nuri helps the imagined Mohammed search for the key again, but the doors it unlocks inevitably lead to a destroyed Aleppo. These visions emphasize Nuri’s desire to return to the safety of his home, which no longer exists.

Near the end of the novel, two keys appear in the physical world of Nuri’s story. The first is the key Nuri uses to lock his and Afra’s room in the smuggler’s apartment, which he fatefully forgets, enabling Mr. Fotakis to enter the room and rape Afra. Here, the key’s meaning shifts to represent the violation of a safe place (the room in the apartment) and the guilt that Nuri feels for having enabled that violation. The second key is one that Nuri gave to Sami when the boy was still alive, telling him it “opened a secret house that [wouldn’t] break.” Again, this key represents Nuri’s attempt to provide a sense of safety for his family, the pain he feels knowing that safety itself is an illusion, and his inability to protect Sami from death. In this way, the novel uses keys to explore the human compulsion to search for safety from the world’s violence regardless of its illusory nature.