After finding out
that he killed Rauf’s doorman, and while hiding in Nur’s apartment, Said reads
the newspaper and becomes drunk and slightly delusional. He then imagines
himself to be in front of a panel of judges while he defends himself and his
innocence.
This passage characterizes
Said as someone with an immense amount of pride, along with being unreasonable. He is
able to justify the murder that he committed, and he is able to congratulate himself
on his innocence all the while completely brushing past the fact that he had
killed an innocent man. He says: “How can I kill a man I did not know and who
didn’t know me? Rauf Ilwan’s servant was killed because quite simply, he was
the servant of Rauf Ilwan.” This line shows how Said believes that since he didn’t
have any real reason to hurt Rauf’s servant, that his death could just be
attributed to collateral damage. Said believes that by merely associating themselves
with someone so evil and twisted like Rauf, the doorman had sealed their fate. This
is a way for him to justify the murder.
His further delusions
are also present in his confidence in himself and his innocence. In the line, “Yes,
these words will glitter; they’ll be crowned with a not-guilty verdict.” When referring
to his reasons for innocence. The imagery of glittering words highlight the purity
of his intentions and how his own abilities to appeal for innocence are
convincing and true.
His compassion
and relationship with his daughter is also highlighted in this passage. When he
is drunk and slightly lucid he remembers his daughter and her rejection. “She
killed you before the hangman could.” This means that he could be identifying the
moment that he truly lost his good intentions and was set on this path of
revenge and justice started when Sana refused to embrace him as her father. The
novel begins with Said’s decline, so it makes sense that the initial point
where Said loses faith in the justice system is when Sana rejects him. Also, by
showing how much it affected him and his view of death, reveals how much of a
caring and emotional man he is. This can make the audience feel more
sympathetic to his cause since it seems to be stemming out from his failed
relationship with his daughter.
Said also sees
himself as a martyr for his egalitarian and socialist beliefs. He says: “Whoever
kills me will be killing the millions. I am the hope and the dream, the
redemption of cowards; I am good principles, consolation, the tears that recall
the weeper to humility.” This shows how highly he regards himself as a savior for
humanity. By calling himself “the hope and the dream”, it reveals how his motives
and reasons behind his actions are from a place of heroism. He sees himself as someone
fighting a cruel and unjust system, which is archetypical of the tragic hero. This
is also where his hubris and tragic flaw are also present, his inability to
take full responsibility for his fate and absolute obsession with finding faults
in others in order to justify his own cause.
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