What is it?
Although not the most frequently appearing symbol, the symbolism of an airport stood out to me. Each of the Pasha siblings is pictured in an airport at some point in the book: Isma when traveling to America, Parvaiz when leaving with Farooq, and Aneeka when going to reclaim Parvaiz's body. The airport is often only a small portion of a chapter, but it can hold a lot of deper meaning.
The Meaning of the Airport
The symbolism of an airport changes based on the destination. In Home Fire, all of the airport scenes involved a character leaving the UK for another country. In this case, the airport is used to represent a large change in one's life. Isma was finally doing what she wanted instead of taking care of her siblings, Parvaiz was leaving his world behind and following in his father's footsteps, and Aneeka undertaking her first journey without her brother.
While these events are important, they are things that the reader already knew when the character stepped foot in the airport. The airport represents these changes, but it also symbolizes the changes that have yet to come. In each of these journeys, all of the siblings' lives were changed forever. When Isma went to America, she met Eamonn, setting off the plot for the story. Parvaiz's trip shattered the family and shook the country. Aneeka's trip made headlines, potentially changed laws/policies, and left Isma an only child.
Interestingly, Isma's airport experience is the only one that showed her leaving and arriving inside the airport. In the case of Parvaiz and Aneeka, the story describes them preparing to leave and then cuts to them at their destination. This could be subtle forshadowing that Isma's trip was complete (she went to America and came home) whereas Parvaiz and Aneeka's were both unintentionally one-way.
With all the changes that occur in this story, it certainly makes sense for the airport to symbolize some of them. I also think that the challenges we see Isma being faced with at the airport might connect as well. It could illustrate the obstacles that come with trying to make such a big change in one's life.
ReplyDeleteI never saw the airport as a symbol until now. I really liked how you connected the way in which each sibling's description of travel is related to their fates. Looking back, one could say that the lack of description in Aneeka's and Parvaiz's plane rides was foreshadowing.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was answering this prompt, I had not considered the airport as a symbol, but after reading your post, I think it is a really interesting one. I found it very telling that Shamsie chose to begin the novel with this scene.
ReplyDeleteI love this choice of image--once you point it out, you realize how pervasive it is in the text. And airports are places where the laws of nations are pressed into action, since they are sites of international exchange.
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