57 pages • 1 hour read
Abdulrazak GurnahParadise
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1994A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Yusuf
In some senses, Yusuf is the stand-in for the reader, somewhat of a blank slate upon which the events of the novel are etched. There are very few occasions when the narrator or author provides Yusuf’s opinions or judgments upon what he sees or experiences, and as a result, readers are encouraged to fill in the blanks, presumably from what they imagine would be their own reactions. Khalil characterizes this hollowness in Yusuf when he explains why others find him unsettling: “anyone can see that your miserable eyes are open and that you desire nothing to escape them” (194). This pronouncement comes as explanation of his remark that Yusuf makes the seyyid “feel that he’s behaving badly” (194). Whether or not this is true, the comment reflects on Yusuf’s quiet demeanor and watchfulness, paralleling the stance of a reader towards a novel.
Traits that serve Yusuf from his early days are his ability to handle solitude and his ability to learn a variety of things. When the neighborhood children don’t allow him to play kipande with them, he plays on his own, becoming quite good at playing solo what is otherwise a team game. He learns numbers and the ways of the shop from Khalil, reading and Islam study from an imam, garden care from watching Mzee Hamdani, and mechanical tasks from Kalasinga. Learning another way in which he absorbs his environment.
Early on, someone remarks to Yusuf that he is named after the prophet who can interpret dreams and has dreams that predict the future. Other than the shadowy figure uttering the greeting Uncle Aziz gives Yusuf one morning, the dreams are not so much prophetic as they are indicative of his fear. Dogs feature in his dreams, from his mother as a one-eyed dog that gets hit by a train to the dog that straddles him and tries to nose out his secrets. Other than his encounter with the real dogs by the shop who range in for an attack one night, however, Yusuf rarely gives voice to his fear, and only in retrospect understands it. He describes the journey to Khalil as “stumbling blindly through the middle of nowhere […] as if he had no real existence, as if he was living in a dream, over the edge of extinction” (180). He doesn’t understand “what it was that people wanted so much that they could overcome that terror in search of trade” (180). Other than the beauty of the waterfall and the presence of Amina, there is little that Yusuf desires. At the end, however, it is clear that Yusuf desires the mere ability to make a choice, to be free to act on desires. He runs off to join the army not out of an understanding of the politics or a desire to become a soldier but to exercise his own ability to make a decision for his life and not end up like Khalil.
Khalil
Khalil takes on the role of Yusuf’s older brother. Like an older brother, he is at times critical and punishing toward Yusuf, and at other times helpful and caring. Overall, he teases Yusuf as a form of diversion and instruction. He entertains the younger boy with stories of Gog and Magog, Iskander the Conqueror, ghouls, and wolf-men. Early on in Yusuf’s time at the shop, he notices how Khalil plays up to the customers, often acting like a clown. The morning Yusuf leaves with the caravan he sees Khalil “slavering over Uncle Aziz’s hand at the last moment, looking as though he would swallow it whole if he were given the opportunity” (55). He is deferential toward Uncle Aziz to the point of obsequiousness, a rare occasion where the reader sees Yusuf’s disgust.
Khalil’s revelation to Yusuf that he had intimacies with Ma Ajuza while Yusuf was away indicates that the young man does not see many options for himself. Though he talked up her qualities to Yusuf, it was mostly in jest. The reality is that both Ma Ajuza and Khalil had desires with no avenue for expressing or acting on them. They took comfort in one another not out of specific desire for each other but out of desperation. For Khalil, fulfilling one’s needs, including sexual ones, by whatever means necessary is not a matter of shame but a cold fact of his life.
As the story of Khalil’s life that brought him to Uncle Aziz unfolds, one can speculate that his absorption in the shop prevents him from thinking too much or too deeply about his circumstances, his seeming lack of choices, or his anger at being sold and abandoned. The shop is so much his focus, in fact, that when Uncle Aziz leaves with the caravan and Yusuf suggests they go to town, Khalil gets nervous, thinking they might get lost. In that instance, it is Yusuf who is more of the older brother, prodding his sibling into being more adventurous. In the end, while Khalil claims honor keeps him at the shop, Yusuf calls it a “noble word” that he hides behind. For Khalil, the honor that keeps him there to stay with Amina hides his fear of what he would do if he left the shop and had to start his life on his own terms.
Uncle Aziz
The first description Yusuf gives of Uncle Aziz is of his “strange and unusual” scent, which is “a mixture of hide and perfume, and gums and spices, and another less definable smell which made Yusuf think of danger” (3). This focus on the scent of the man sets him apart from others, not just in terms of class but also in terms of worldliness. It is almost as if Uncle Aziz has an aura about him, making him larger than he is and signaling his prestige, “announcing excess and prosperity and daring” (18). Unlike Yusuf, he can speak both Kiswahili and Arabic. Though he is the power-wielder in the story, the one who sets terms to take children from their parents and who decides when and where trade journeys should go, his manner is almost uniformly calm and even. Yusuf describes this as the merchant’s “refined airs and his polite, impassive manner” (3).
Before Yusuf leaves his parents, he looks forward to visits from Uncle Aziz, as the merchant acts toward him in an avuncular way, such as giving small gifts and patting him on the back. However, once Yusuf arrives at Aziz’s house, the “uncle” nature mostly drops away, and he rarely speaks to Yusuf, leaving the orientation to his new life to Khalil. As they approach the house, Yusuf gets a better impression of the merchant’s status when people clear the way for him or come up to kiss his ring.
On the journeys, Yusuf sees the calm, unflappable Uncle Aziz, a man who quiets his men’s fears by repeating, “Trust in God,” particularly when they are held captive by Chatu (159). Though he deals in illegal trade and the family-breaking system of taking children as rehani, Uncle Aziz is a devout Muslim, as seen by references to his completing his daily ablutions and hastening home so he can celebrate the end of Ramadhan properly there.
As Yusuf grows and proves of some value on the trips, the merchant begins to act more kindly toward him again. After the losses suffered at Chatu’s village, a weary and defeated side emerges. He can’t even pay his crew fully. Being the successful businessman, however, he has contingencies for such situations, which, in this case, means selling the rhino horn. The demotion of Uncle Aziz from an almost other-worldly being of power to a trader struggling to pay his debts signals a larger trend. The arrival of the German army at the end marks the decline of the caravan trade culture in East Africa. Uncle Aziz is perhaps one of the last caravan traders, or at least the last successful one of the era.
Mohammed Abdalla
Unlike Uncle Aziz’s grand entrance in the story, Mohammed Abdalla’s entrance is marked by the word “demon.” Khalil calls the mnyapara a “hard-hearted twister of souls, without wisdom or mercy” (34). Abdalla does the dirty work for Uncle Aziz, keeping the rough crew in line and sometimes taking away children as rehani, as the case was for Khalil and Amina. Khalil reports that Abdalla also molested seven-year-old Amina before bringing her to the merchant’s house. The man’s reputation beyond the rehani is that of a “merciless sodomizer,” and he crudely endorses in his first interactions with Yusuf (47). However, as time goes on and Yusuf appears to be favored by Uncle Aziz, Abdalla ceases his lewd advances toward and instead tells him about the lands through which they travel and some of the work of running a trade caravan. However, Abdalla’s comments about the people and cultures they encounter show him to be closed-minded and prejudiced, often referring to other cultures as “savages” and mocking their beliefs.
Mohammed Abdalla’s character has a steady decline over the course of the novel. The first description of him suggests he is ready to use his strength and anger: “His scowling, snarling looks, and the pitiless light in his eyes promised nothing but pain to any who crossed him. His simplest and most ordinary gestures were performed with the knowledge and relish of this power” (46). However, after suffering an injury in the first trade journey, the man has a chronic pain, which occasionally causes him to wince. The crew notices this and mocks him. His power and position decrease even more after the beating from Chatu. After that point, Simba Mwene becomes the merchant’s righthand man. When Uncle Aziz dismisses the men but holds Mwene back to talk about the next journey, it spells the end of Mohammed Abdalla’s role and usefulness to the merchant.
