Sunday, October 16, 2022

Introducing Aneeka and Antigone

 

When comparing Antigone and Home Fire, I became interested in the differences between how Antigone and Aneeka are first introduced to the readers.

In Antigone, the identity of the protagonist is known from the start. Antigone is literally the title of the play, so her importance is never doubted. Not only that, but she carries the first lines, giving her the ability to define herself, her personality, and her values in her own words. Sophocle's protagonist has no mystery.

Aneeka, by contrast, is almost initially set up as a side character. When reading the blurb of Home Fire and then going through the first section, it seemed as if Isma was the star of the plot. And not only did Aneeka's section only arrive in the middle of the book, but it featured almost nothing from her own voice. Much of her section is composed of outside sources, and the very view own words she has are someone poetic, vague, and difficult to understand.

I am not completely sure why Shamsie decided to obscure Aneeka's voice in Home Fire, but I do find it significant. Perhaps Shamsie is trying to say that it is not always obvious who the "main characters" are in a situation, that it is not always clear whose beliefs and perspectives matter the most. She could also be making a point about feminism and arguing that the opinions of women who are seen as too emotional or young are often not properly recognized. Finally, the lack of Aneeka's authoritative voice creates uncertainty about her true intentions. The readers are made to sympathize more with Karamat than they would have otherwise because they truly do not know the depth or conviction of Aneeka's love.

These ideas may be some of the reasons why Shamsie strayed from Antigone's centricity in the original play. Going forward, I am interested in comparing how other main characters are introduced and what that says about the respective texts.

 

4 comments:

  1. Hi Heather! I totally did not think about this difference in introduction until you mentioned it, but I agree that it is quite dynamic and likely significant. Something I wonder is if Shamsie is trying to add emphasis to her point of perspective. Whereas classically Aneeka would be the main character, in giving this agency to four other characters in the story as well, she brings importance to perspective and how each person is almost the "main character" of their own story/lifetime if that makes sense?

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  2. I appreciate your emphasis on the importance of Shamsie's diversity and ambiguity of the main character. I think her starting with Isma, and making Aneeka initially a side character, gave a more in depth perspective of Isma that we don't get from Ismene. I like how Shamsie emphasized the perspectives of different characters because it gave a deeper understanding of their motives and actions.

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  3. We can see this dynamic happening with the title even: Shamsie's book is not called Aneeka in parallel to Sophocles's Antigone, but instead Home Fire...

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  4. Hi Heather, that's a cool comparison you made. It's interesting that in Antigone, Isma's parallel Ismene is put into the play similarly as Shamsie put Aneeka into Home Fire. The two characters seemed to reverse importance in introduction between the two stories.

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