65 pages • 2 hours read
Francesco D'AdamoA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
“Then he drew many other lines, one next to the other, as straight as the hair on the back of a frightened dog, and every group of four had a line through it.”
“I had been working for Hussain Khan for three years, and I had never been put in the Tomb. Some of the other children were envious, and said I was Hussain Khan’s pet and that’s why he didn’t punish me.”
Fatima is Hussain’s favorite because she submits without complaint, making her easy to manage, and she is good at making the carpets. Some of the children turn against Fatima and are jealous of her rather than uniting against Hussain. By creating strife among the children, Hussain has an easier time oppressing them.
“He has been erasing those lines for three years, and they were still all there, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. Sometimes I even thought there were more of them, but that wasn’t possible—the lines on the slate couldn’t be like the weeds in my father’s garden that grew overnight and crowded the crops.”
The author uses dramatic irony to reveal that when the children are not around, Hussain replaces the lines that he erases. Fatima, like many of the others, trusts him when he says she will eventually pay back her family’s debt. By providing false proof of the children’s progress, Hussain both motivates the children to work hard and prevents them from rebelling against him.