Shaun Tan

Raymon D. Ritumban, MA

ENLIT12: Global Voices and Encounters

November 24, 2021

Close Reading Assignment 10:

1. Make a simple table of the poem’s elements.

Characters “I”, Sawsan, the woman

Plot The narrator observes an abandoned town. The narrator then sees smoke

of battle from nearby towns and fields of cotton surrounding the village. “I”

then realizes he never had a chance to see cotton flowers.

“I” sees a girl sitting on the roof with her skin being burned by the sun as

told by the woman. “I” followed her into the house to see her check the

news on the television. “I” wonders why the woman and the girl would not

flee.

“I” followed the woman to see her fetch her dog from the livestock

enclosure. “I” went back to the girl to see her crying. The woman went back

to tell the girl to eat. The girl then refused because she wanted to die of

starvation rather than sunstroke.

A cell phone rang. The woman picked it up asking to look for her husband.

“I” could not find the caller since “I” was not allowed to go beyond the

village.

Weeks passed. “I” only had Sawsaw and her mother (the woman), to be
 amused of.

“I” realized the reason why the mother stayed was because her husband was

fighting the opposition from the other towns but then disappeared. She also

tells her daughter to bathe in the sun so the regime militias would not rape

her since they preferred those with fair complexions. She was also gathering

dogs like previously mentioned, to protect them from the intruders.

Sawsan told her mother about the story of Shamseddin, a tyrannical king

who owned elephants that drove out the people from the town. Gunfire

broke out. A pilot was killed by gunmen. This made the mother worried it

was the end and shot her daughter. She then put the pistol in her mouth. At

dawn, the mother went out beyond the village.

The story ends revealing “I” to be dead and his past life being a sniper. The

narrator died because of a bombing from where “I” hid.

Setting A village

Point of View First-person point of view

Theme War, regime soldiers, terrorism, family

2. In 150-300 words, describe the narrating character. You may use more than one textual evidence, but

be mindful of the word count.

 The narrating character is a dead former sniper that killed regime soldiers. The narrator first

implicitly mentioned this at the start of the story. “I” did this by expressing “whether sleeping had a place

in [I’s] new life” (Blasim). The narrator used this speech to express how the after-life did not need sleep.

“I” then talks about fighting to the last breath in the part of the story that said “I spent my life working in

a bakery, then as a taxi driver, and finally as a prison guard. When the revolution broke out, I joined the

resistance. I fought to my last breath” (Blasim)

At the end of the story, “I” told of what happened while fighting for the resistance.. “I had been

fighting with the Sons of God mujahideen. I was a sniper. For a year and a half I had picked off regime

soldiers. In the end they dropped a bomb on my hiding place from a plane. They dragged out my mangled

body and kicked it and pissed on it. I didn’t care about my corpse being abused. I was delighted to have

died in battle. I would meet the Lord with a clear conscience” (Blasim). This revealed that “I” was a

sniper and “I” was bombed which killed the narrator. (215)

Work Cited

Blasim, Hassam. “The Abandoned Village,” translated by Jonathan Wright. Literary Hub.