Burnt Shadows

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2009

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Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2, Chapters 1-3

Part 2, Chapters 4-7

Part 2, Chapters 8-12

Part 3, Chapters 13-16

Part 3, Chapters 17-20

Part 3, Chapters 21-23

Part 3, Chapters 24-26

Part 4, Chapters 27-30

Part 4, Chapters 31-33

Part 4, Chapters 34-37

Part 4, Chapters 38-42

Character Analysis

Themes

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Important Quotes

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Part 2, Chapters 4-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 2: “Veiled Birds”

Part 2, Chapter 4 Summary

Hiroko and the Burtons attend a party with the social elite of British India. Elizabeth, exhausted by her social duties and wishing to get away from the snobby crowd, rescues Hiroko from awkward conversation. James watches Elizabeth and Hiroko leave the party, unable to understand their friendship. James and Elizabeth are revealed to no longer be sexually intimate.

Away from the other guests, Elizabeth admits that the British Empire makes her feel “German,” or like an outsider. Hiroko tells Elizabeth about the book on cosmopolitanism that Konrad was writing in his purple notebooks. Hiroko interprets Konrad’s book as a way of imagining a world in which Konrad, who grew up in Berlin, and Elizabeth, who left Berlin for London before Konrad was born, could have connected across barriers of language and culture. Hiroko resolves to build something permanent of her life. Elizabeth tells Hiroko that she is sorry for all Hiroko has lost. The two women return to the party, and Hiroko realizes that she and Elizabeth have been speaking in German, not English.

Part 2, Chapter 5 Summary

Elizabeth writes letters to Harry in England and to her cousin Willie Weiss, an openly gay man living in New York City who shares Elizabeth’s sense of being an outsider in the Weiss family. James arrives and sees that Elizabeth called Willie Liebling, German for “darling,” in her letter, noting that Elizabeth no longer uses the term with him. James proposes that they find a husband for Hiroko, looking for a way to end her stay with them, but Elizabeth says Hiroko declared that she will never marry. Elizabeth assumes it is because Hiroko is still in love with Konrad.

During their Urdu lesson, Hiroko tells Sajjad that it is Konrad’s birthday. Sajjad tells Hiroko how Konrad immediately stood out from any of the other white men in India because he came to Sajjad’s moholla to explore the local history. Hiroko tells Sajjad that she and Yoshi buried the rock with Konrad’s shadow at the International Cemetery in Nagasaki. Hiroko silently remembers how she embraced the rock, wishing she had convinced Konrad to stay with her that day. Sajjad tells Hiroko about an Urdu phrase, ghum-khaur, which means “grief eaters,” and asks Hiroko if she would like to be alone with her grief, as Elizabeth and James assume, or if she would like Sajjad to listen. Hiroko tells Sajjad that she is studying Urdu, not English.

Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary

Elizabeth, James, Sajjad, and Hiroko visit the ruins of Qutb Minar, a famous Islamic minaret. Hiroko asked Sajjad to take her on a tour of his moholla, but James overheard her request and insisted on leading the group on a tour of the ancient structure instead. Sajjad waits with Elizabeth while James gives Hiroko a tour of the structure, much to Hiroko’s displeasure.

Sajjad and Elizabeth share a rare moment of connection as Sajjad tells her about the Mamluk soldiers, his ancestors, who helped the former slave Qutb-ud-din Aibak build a kingdom in India. Sajjad tells Elizabeth about his favorite historic figure, Razia Sultana, a warrior queen, and says that if he ever has a daughter, he will name her Razia. Sajjad and Elizabeth join James and Hiroko, and Elizabeth shares that Sajjad’s Turkish ancestors built the minaret. James playfully asks Sajjad if he is a “Young Turk,” but Sajjad, offended, insists that he is Indian, saying that when Muslims leave India for the new Pakistan they will be leaving home, but when the British leave India, they will be returning home. Elizabeth notes that Harry thinks of India as home, but Sajjad questions how much longer Harry will feel that way. Elizabeth says it is for the best, angering Sajjad. Hiroko diffuses the tension by calming Sajjad, angering Elizabeth, who is jealous of Sajjad’s ability to win everyone over while remaining indifferent to Elizabeth herself. Elizabeth asks Sajjad about his arranged marriage, causing Hiroko to storm off. The Burtons follow Hiroko while Sajjad remains at the minaret.

Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary

Sajjad cycles to Bungle Oh! and imagines Hiroko attending his future wedding to another woman. Lala Buksh tells Sajjad that he is leaving for Pakistan, fearful for his life because of the violence erupting between Hindus and Muslims over Partition.

Hiroko waits in the garden nervously for Sajjad, having realized after Qutb Minar that she is sexually attracted to him. Hiroko confronts Sajjad about his arranged marriage and the usefulness of his arrangement with James, but Sajjad believes that loyalty to James is his best chance at being a lawyer. Sajjad asks Hiroko if she will ever marry, and Hiroko tells him no, but not because of Konrad. Hiroko undoes the buttons down the back of her blouse, despite Sajjad’s protests, and shows him her bird-shaped burn scars. Hiroko expects Sajjad to be repulsed, but he overcomes his shock and touches Hiroko tenderly, calling her “Birdback” and saying that she is beautiful. Hiroko, at first enjoying Sajjad’s touch, becomes angry that he considers anything related to the bomb to be beautiful and turns to yell at him. Elizabeth arrives to investigate the shouting and finds Hiroko, furious and half-dressed, and Sajjad, visibly erect, and assumes that Sajjad has attempted to assault Hiroko.

Part 2, Chapters 4-7 Analysis

The rising action of Part 2 investigates the obstacles and catalysts of cross-cultural intimacy, examining the splintering relationship of Elizabeth and James against the developing romance between Hiroko and Sajjad and the various degrees of friendship between Hiroko, Sajjad, Elizabeth, and James.

Shamsie develops Hiroko and Elizabeth’s friendship in German, not English, suggesting Ilse Weiss has literally been lost in translation to Elizabeth Burton. Hiroko—independent and unconcerned with propriety—proposes a new idea of womanhood to Elizabeth. Shamsie relates Elizabeth’s feelings of closeness to her use of German again when James wonders, “Which went first? […] German or intimacy?” upon seeing her letter to Willie (75). Estranged from her husband, Elizabeth no longer uses her first language with him, nor consents to sexual activity. Shamsie makes a distinction between physical and emotional intimacy between the Burtons and portrays physical intimacy as a kind of language in and of itself. Shamsie also contrasts Elizabeth’s comfort with sexual intimacy with Hiroko’s fear of eroticism, as Hiroko experiences Sajjad’s sensual reaction to her scars as a betrayal rather than considering that their emotional intimacy could translate directly into sexual desire.

Hiroko and Sajjad’s intimacy develops quickly in Part 2, facilitated by their Urdu lessons. Again, Shamsie equates language learning with emotional closeness and jump-starts Hiroko and Sajjad’s romance via their mutual friendship with Konrad. Each knows that the other was beloved by Konrad, who had respect for all, and so is more willing to let their guard down. Crucially, it is Sajjad’s respect for Hiroko’s grief—which Shamsie suggests is culturally instilled in him via the concept of ghum-khaur—compared to the Burtons’ British repression of difficult feelings that causes Hiroko to develop an attachment to him. Just as Elizabeth cannot be fully herself around James and so is falling out of love, Hiroko falls in love with Sajjad because he accepts her full self, in spite of the fact that they are from different worlds.

Shamsie continues to explore nationalism’s role in colonialism in Chapters 4-7 through James and Lala Buksh, the butler. James’s preference for visiting a historical landmark over Sajjad’s moholla reproduces on the individual scale perceptions of a greater British inability to grasp the complex ethnic and religious tensions in India. Through James’s disinterest in the local citizens of Delhi, Shamsie points to a link between cultural insensitivity and the damaging effects of colonization.

In Chapters 4-7, Shamsie further complicates her ideas about nationalism with notions of class. Through Hiroko’s suspicion of Sajjad’s arrangement with James, Shamsie suggests that Sajjad is participating in the colonialist British/Indian hierarchy rather than challenging it. Sajjad is willing to subjugate himself to James now in order to earn a higher social rank later by becoming an attorney, climbing in status himself but ultimately reinforcing the larger social order. Hiroko, however, seems more cognizant of the difficulties of class mobility, noting at the party in Chapter 4, “Two years after the war [the British] could accept an ally of Hitler sooner than someone of a different class” (66). Sajjad is determined to separate himself from the ethnic/religious prejudices and political upheaval happening in his country. As Shamsie writes in Chapter 6, Sajjad “thought the world would change around him but his own life would remain unaffected” (81). The unexpected introduction of Hiroko into Sajjad’s life, however, creates the opportunity for the confrontation at Qutb Minar and exposes Sajjad to the ways in which his personal fate is linked to the forces of history, despite his best efforts at self-determination.