How we cite our quotes: (Page)
Quote #1
In the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi...the song of the reed is the metaphor for our human condition, haunted as we so often are by a vague sense of longing and of nostalgia, but nostalgia for we know not quite what. Cut from its bed and fashioned into a pipe, the reed forever laments the living earth that it once knew, crying out, whenever life is breathed into it, its ache and its yearning and loss. (5)
Ahmed often includes the work of Rumi in this narrative, but her reference to the song of the reed in his poetry is the most haunting image that she shares with us. She sees the music of the reed as a call to something that's not immediately present, like a hidden truth or a life lived in a different place and time.
The reed represents the longing that she feels as she looks for something authentic—her true origins and identity, before labels were placed on her by outside forces. In the reed metaphor, we are all strangers in a strange land, trying to get back to native soil.
Quote #2
For me now there is no doubt that, at least implicitly, English was valued above Arabic in ways that would have marked it, in a child's mind at least, as being somehow innately a "superior" language. English was, to begin with, the language we spoke at school, where we were prohibited even in the playground from speaking Arabic. And it was the language of the people we looked up to at school, namely, our British teachers. And the language of the movies we went to and of the glamourous world in which they were set, and of the books we read and their enticing imaginary worlds. (23)
Ahmed explores the condition of colonization on both personal and national levels. Here, she talks about something as intimate—like language preference—as a sign that British imperial forces had done a thorough job. They had taught Egyptians that their own civilization wasn't all that civilized. Ahmed grew up believing that all things English were the bee's knees. She wasn't aware back then, however, that colonization isn't just for countries. Sometimes, it happens to souls, too.
Quote #3
There was something else, too, a shadow always there, adding to my sense of desperate resolve. My aunt Aida had committed suicide a few months after I had come home to Egypt. I had grieved at her death, and now her despair became hauntingly real to me. I feared that a despair like that might overtake me if I found myself trapped in Egypt forever, unable to go on with my life. (28)
Ahmed's relationship to Egypt and to her family is more than a tad complicated. There's no doubt that she loves them both and feels fierce loyalty to them. But they've also left her with a legacy that's a bit untidy. On a personal level, Ahmed feels like she's alienated from herself, as though her genes are a ticking time bomb (i.e., suicidal depression) just waiting to take her out.
Ahmed can't ever be sure if the sadness and anxiety she feels is, in fact, an inheritance from her family or a product of the alienation she feels in Egyptian society, where she's sure she won't ever be allowed to achieve her professional goals.