RF - Chapters 9&10 Work

Directions: Please respond to the following questions in two-four sentences each.

*Page numbers referenced below reflect the page numbers on the PDF.

Group Work: After we work with our groups, we will JIGSAW, so everyone in each group
should be prepared to discuss their group's response with their new group! Everyone should have
at least two sentences for questions that they were not assigned to, and at least four for their own
group’s question!

Question 1: Xan, Victor, Nashla, Wynter, Sunny

Question 2: Hassna, Noemi, Scarlett, Matthew, Julian

Question 3: Gwen, Brendan, Olivia, Simone, Cleo, Makena

Question 4: Kalia, Vincent, Margo, Arianna, Andrew, Fiamma

1. Select and analyze a quote that demonstrates the central idea of war. Why is it significant or
symbolic in the context of the story?

2. “My parents seemed well; they were more frail than when I had seen them last, but at their
age that was to be expected with the passage of a year. My mother twirled a hundred-rupee
note around my head to bless my return; later it would be given to charity. My father’s eyes
glistened, moist and brown. “Contact lenses,” he said, dabbing them with a handkerchief,
“quite smart, eh?” I said they suited him, and they did; his glasses had come late in life, and
they had concealed the strength of his face” (Hamid 60).

What symbol(s) do you notice in this passage, and what is revealed by it/them?
3. “When the time came for me to return to New York I told my parents I wanted to stay longer,
but they would not hear of it. Perhaps they sensed that I was myself divided, that something
called me back to America; perhaps they were simply protecting their son. “Do not forget to
shave before you go,” my mother said to me. “Why?” I asked, indicating my father and
brother. “They have beards.” “They,” she replied, “have them only because they wish to hide
the fact that they are bald. Besides, you are still a boy.” She stroked my stubble with her
fingers and added, “It makes you look like a mouse.” (this symbol comes up directly on page
59 and again on 60).

What symbol(s) do you notice in this passage, and what is revealed by it/them?

4. What do we learn about the American in Chapter 9? Use a quote! Why is that significant?
Why might that be important to know going forward? Make an inference!

Individual Work: Respond to ALL 4!

5. Select and analyze a quote that characterizes the nature of Changez’s visit to Erica.
6. How has Changez/s relationship with Jim changed? Select and analyze a quote to support
your reasoning.

7. How was Changez influenced by Juan-Bautista? Select and analyze a quote in your response.

8. “I thought of Erica. It occurred to me that my attempts to communicate with her might have
failed in part because I did not know where I stood on so many issues of consequence; I
lacked a stable core. I was not certain where I belonged—in New York, in Lahore, in both, in
neither—and for this reason, when she reached out to me for help, I had nothing of substance
to give her. Probably this was why I had been willing to try to take on the persona of Chris,
because my own identity was so fragile. But in so doing—and by being unable to offer her an
alternative to the chronic nostalgia inside her— I might have pushed Erica deeper into her
own confusion. I resolved to write this to her in an email, as a sort of apology, perhaps, and
as an invitation to resume the contact between us that she had all but severed, and I recall
pressing send without rereading even once what I had written” (Hamid 66).

What is Changez realizing here? What has changed in him?