Randa Jarrar’s A Map of Home is a sentimental novel portrays a Middle Eastern girl coming of age. The narrator shares her stories from the time she is born, the great impact of the Syrian War, frequent forced migration whilst portraying the domestic battleground at home. It is important to note the stories told by the narrator are phases of normal everyday life. Notwithstanding the cultural and environmental aspects, the themes of discovering sexuality, learning how to firmly stand one’s ground, fighting for freedom and independence, and simply finding a place to call home are similar struggles for persons coming to age. The reality of the narrator’s stories allows the wonderfully achieved novel to become appealing and personal to readers.
Nadali is the daughter of a Greek-Egyptian born mother and a Palestinian father. The mother Fairuza is seen in the novel as an enthusiastic pianist desperately holding onto her dreams to music. The father – Waheed, was exiled from Palestine obliging him to find temporary homes. Whilst in the midst of his struggles, Waheed once found comfort in his developments as a poet but failed miserably rendering him to resent his failures. Nadali and Waheed are juxtaposing characters, as her father finds his self-confliction as motive to dictate Nadali’s career as a famous professor, while studying at home.
The narrator notes the importance of the name Nadali meaning “my struggle,” which is a product of her parents’ troublesome marriage. As Nadali is becoming of age, she witnesses terrible verbal and physical fights between her parents. Her mom is not the only victim as Nadali has also experienced verbal and physical abuse from her father. The hurt from her father adds the struggle of becoming of age.
127 our experts are availableright now
Nadali was born in Boston, MA, which granted her an American Passport rendering her acutely different than her parents who were born in what she calls, “a whole different world” (Map of Home, 210). Throughout the novel, we follow the narrator from place to place as the voice of the narrator becomes clearly older. Initially, Nadali is a girl between the ages of three and thirteen, Nadali has called Kuwait home. This phase of Nadali’s life portrayed by the narrator conveys her everyday life of school, the importance of family and friends. Initially, Fairuza announces the arrival of a new baby boy – Gumal – who is Nadali’s baby brother. Her preliminary remarks are similar to any older siblings’ remarks, “she must have thought this was a funny thing because she was laughing and happy, so I was laughing and happy even though I hated this new baby…if mama took care of it, who would take care of me” (15).
The next monumental story is Nadali gaining understanding of who the people of Ibrahim are, whom her father asks God to bless at prayer time. one of her school friends inform her they are religious figures in the Quran. From here, Nadali enters in an all-boys Koran contest, which she is destined to win and she does. She explains her feelings of the truth upsetting her; hence, truth being her father’s happiness deriving from the source where feelings of accomplishment resided. “It was almost as though he won” (57). She also discovers her personality while secretly challenging her father’s idea of a Hijab. “Baba would never let me cover my hair. He said it was for donkeys’ (49). Next, Nadali’s religious cousin Esam shows up, whom challenges Nadali’s choice of Wonder women posters and stickers. “She should not be the women you admire…because she is a shameless prostitute” (53).
Esam’s actions hurt Nadali like no other. She just wants to be what she calls a normal girl. Esam also proves significance to the novel as he refutes Waheed’s declaration of “you must be cleaned to read the Koran, but no one ever said you had to be covered” (49). In the midst of preparing for the contest, Waheed’s admiration and persistence illuminates as he beats Nadali for not perfecting her verse from the Koran. Because of the Waheed’s regrettable discourse in failing to become a famous poet, he pressures Nadali tirelessly to ensure she is the best person she can be, even if this means beating her senseless.
In addition to this phase of the novel, Nadali kisses her first boyfriend Fakhr by the end of eighth grade. One of the many times the two kissed, she and Fakhr were caught by the janitor at school fearing what he might do. Although Nadali explained how it was against the law to kiss in public, she does not fail to become very detailed in her description of her physical encounters with her first boyfriend. One of the moments her family finally gives her freedom, she is caught by her father while hanging out with boys, though this is not what she is in trouble for. Nadali was caught down playing her education that her father works so hard to ensure she becomes the professor she is destined to be. She fails out of the excelling classes to be with Fakhr. Her father then beats her. Days like this is when Waheed prays Nadali was born a boy because he would not have to deal with the pressure of ensuring the person, he wanted her to be. “Baba had been pretending all my life that I was a boy, from the moment of my birth, even before. Tonight, was possibly the first time he actually realized that I was on my way to becoming a woman (122).
On Nadali’s thirteenth birthday, she remembers becoming an adult. The phase of the novel is the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait. Vivid descriptions of bombs and bodies in the street dropping every minute is no surprise to Nadali and her family. Instead this is everyday life, a normal life for some who live in regions facing conflict This too was Nadali’s birthday present – survival. Like Waheed when he was growing up, the family is exiled forcing them to leave what they called home. They travel through Iraq and Jordan to Egypt where Nadali begins a new, less innocent chapter in her life. Aside from the chaos and like many preteens, the narrator hints at Nadali’s first solo sexual experience and beginning her menstrual cycle, which is her becoming a woman.
While the family is settling into their new home, Nadali is getting older and starting to realize her need for independence and freedom. She begins challenging her fathers will about school, when in the end, she is worried about making new friends all over again and not being able to fall in love. The family kept their secrets of migrating from Kuwait silenced, as if it was tucked away in a box, or a taboo, which should not be spoken of.
Nadali meets a new boy whom she describes as red head and a girl named Jiji whom she becomes extremely close with. Nadali began to question her sexuality and her faith to God after her and Jiji kissed. She compares this encounter with Jiji to the few she had with Fakhr. “I replayed that kiss over and over in my mind, tried to figure out what it meant that I liked both girls are boys (176). Continuing through Nadali’s second phase in life, she coincidently meets Fakhr again, as he also migrated to Egypt in exile. The two are sneaking around to meet in public areas to swim and ride bikes together, enjoying every moment of being a normal teenager.
Once again, Nadali is forced to move. This time, it is for the betterment of the family. Baba cannot find a job in Egypt and supposes Texas has a lot planned ahead for him. Nadali is now a “Arab-Texan chica living in America where she and her mama are asked frequently if they are Mexican. Nadali had preconceived visions of America, “when I thought of America, I saw girls and boys holding hands and break ups and kissing in public.” The narrator continues, “I would add one thing to my vision, and this was my own ideal symbol for America: Privacy” (201).
In addition to Nadali realizing her need to privacy, she becomes more rebellious against her family, especially her father. She runs away from home twice, both on the basis of wanting her father to extend her curfew and allow her to hang out with her new friends Dimi and Camilla and Medina. Also, in Nadali’s phase of high school in America, she begins to form her own personality with the style of her clothing and the direction of her college journey she will embark on. She understands none of what she wants in life (freedom, to go away for college, to hang out with friends) will come easy, thus aiding her to stand up for what she believes in. In the end, she her dedication to her school work while facing obstacles with boys and her sexuality are all elements of growing up to become the young woman.
A Map of Home is a well-developed novel portraying a girl facing normal obstacles in life until she reaches womanhood. As readers, we experience the Arabic language and get a glimpse of the reality that normal to a person’s everyday life.
A few things I enjoyed about the boy is how personal it is. As readers, we are able to see the rawness of a young girl growing up to become her own women while realizing she is not going to make everyone happy with the decision, she makes but she does know what is best for her. I can personally relate to the novel on the basis of moving from state to state but I admire the narrator’s endurance in the midst of exile because she remained strong and level-headed. Like the narrator, I have moved from Boston then to Las Vegas then to DC for school. Although it was hard in the beginning to call a new place home, I have learned to enjoy it because in the end, everything happens for a reason. I strongly believe text such as this is important to read because not only are we as readers straying away from what we deem as “normal,” but we are also able to emerge in the “normal” of someone else through detailed text like The Map of Home.
