62 pages • 2 hours read
Elif ShafakThere Are Rivers in the Sky
Elif ShafakFiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A 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
Arthur Smyth
Arthur is one of the three protagonists in There Are Rivers in the Sky. Born on the banks of the Thames while his mother is out scavenging with a group, he is christened “King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums” by the toshers who assist in his birth. Arthur is born with the gift of perfect recall; he remembers every experience and incident from and including the moment of his birth. This gift enables him to excel in school, and after he drops out, he continues to excel in all the work he does. He apprentices at a printing press before he eventually goes on to work at the British Museum, dedicating his life to the study of cuneiform tablets from ancient Mesopotamia and The Epic of Gilgamesh in particular.
Along with his impeccable memory, Arthur inherently possesses a keen sense of justice and a deeply sensitive and empathetic nature. Arthur’s mother, Arabella, struggles with mental health conditions all her life, while his father is largely absent and abusive when present. Arthur also has twin younger brothers, and between his father’s abuse and his mother’s ill health, the burden of caring for his family falls onto his shoulders. Despite these early hardships, including brutality at his father’s hands and the absence of a nurturing parental presence, Arthur displays both a tender heart and a strong sense of responsibility. He chooses to leave school when he is treated cruelly and unfairly by the headmaster and a new teacher, unwilling to put up with their abuse. At the same time, he works with dedication at the press and prioritizes taking care of his family, putting up with his father’s behavior for the sake of his mother and brothers.
Arthur’s empathy and sense of justice especially come through during his time in Nineveh. Despite the popular misconception of the Yazidis as “devil-worshippers” and the prejudiced treatment they receive from everyone around them, Arthur refuses to shun them. He befriends them and treats them with respect, enjoying their hospitality throughout his first visit to Nineveh. Arthur’s empathy leads him to see that that community is misunderstood just as he himself has been at different junctures in his life. It further allows him to understand the questionable ethics of the excavation work he is doing, and he questions whether it is right to take historical artifacts away from the land and people they belong to. Arthur’s character thus allows Shafak to explore the theme of Archaeology as Plunder.
Arthur also serves as the connecting link between storylines. Shafak ascribes him the role of the oxygen atom in a water molecule, connecting the two hydrogen atoms that are Narin and Zaleekhah in a non-linear narrative. Thus, even though Zaleekhah is of Turkish descent, it is Arthur who travels between the Thames and the Tigris. His actions also connect Narin’s and Zaleekhah’s lives: Arthur gifts Leila the qanun, which is passed down to Narin’s father, Khaled. Khaled’s qanun playing allows him to bring Besma and Narin to Iraq. This unfortunately sees them caught in the massacre carried out by ISIS, but it also brings Narin into Zaleekhah’s life when the latter buys Narin’s freedom. Arthur’s arc is narratively important, as it connects storylines; he performs a similar connective function between the ancient and the modern. His work is essential in deciphering the cuneiform tablets and bringing The Epic of Gilgamesh and other Mesopotamian texts to the modern world. Thus, he has a thematically significant role in exploring The Impact of Ancient Texts on Modern Lives.
Narin
Narin is the second of the three protagonists in the book. A young, Yazidi girl, she is nine years old when she is introduced in the book; by the time Zaleekhah and Nen rescue her from slavery at the end of the book, she is 13. Narin was born with a congenital condition that sees her steadily lose her hearing. She is primarily cared for by her grandmother, Besma, as her father, Khaled, is a traveling qanun player. After Narin and Besma travel to Lalish in Iraq for her baptism, her entire family, along with the rest of her community, becomes the targets of a genocidal massacre carried out by ISIS. She is captured and sold into slavery, experiencing untold horrors until Zaleekhah and Nen eventually help her find freedom.
Initially, Narin is a largely passive character, with her storyline primarily exploring the hatred and persecution faced by the Yazidi community. Her first appearance in the book features an interrupted baptism, where men working on a dam on the banks of Hasankeyf refuse to let the gathered Yazidis carry out their ceremony. Thus, from her introduction, Narin’s religious and ethnic identity is highlighted, and this is the context in which the rest of her story unfolds. She is a passive, yet delighted recipient of Besma’s stories about their family and community’s past, and Narin and Besma’s conversations serve an expository function in introducing Yazidi history and mythology. In the latter part of the book, Narin displays flashes of fieriness. After she is captured by ISIS militants and sold to their commander, she is kept prisoner along with other women who are forced to serve as sabayas. Despite being privy to the horrific torture that these women endure, and facing assault and abuse herself, Narin stands up to the commander for Salma’s sake. When this act of resistance proves futile, Narin soon gives up hope.
Shafak uses Narin’s storyline to display the kinds of cruelty that humans are capable of. The persecution of her community, her personal experiences at the hands of ISIS, and even how she eventually ends up in Zaleekhah’s life all speak to this. By commencing the story in Ashurbanipal’s time, Shafak underscores how the forced migration of entire communities, and even the kind of brutalities the sabayas face, have been present since the dawn of human civilization; Narin and the Yazidis continue to experience these hardships millennia later. Similarly, Zaleekhah learns of Narin’s existence when she discovers her picture in Uncle Malek’s study. Uncle Malek came across Narin’s story and formed the plan to purchase her as a kidney donor for his granddaughter in the same breath as he intended to purchase a lapis lazuli tablet. Once again, by equating Narin with the tablet from Mesopotamian times, Shafak underlines the avarice and exploitation that humans have been capable of since the beginning of human history.
Zaleekhah Clarke
Zaleekhah is the third of the book’s protagonists. The daughter of a Turkish immigrant, Zaleekhah was born and raised in England. After her parents’ deaths, Zaleekhah was taken in by her maternal uncle, Uncle Malek, when she was seven. She was raised by the Maleks alongside their own daughter, Helen, and supported and provided for the same way. Zaleekhah went on to become a hydrologist, marrying a fellow scientist from whom she eventually separated.
Narin and Zaleekhah serve as the two hydrogen atoms in the water molecule that symbolizes the story, connected non-linearly by Arthur as the oxygen atom. They share some similarities in that both are female characters and both are originally from Mesopotamia; however, their life experiences and circumstances are vastly different. Where Zaleekhah experiences every material comfort she could ever wish for, she suffers from a lack of unconditional love or meaningful connection to family or community. Narin’s story is the reverse of Zaleekhah’s: She is deeply loved by her father and grandmother, who do whatever they can to protect her, and she has a strong connection to her faith and culture. However, she grows up in an environment of scarcity, experiencing untold physical and psychological distress under ISIS.
Zaleekhah’s introduction in the book outlines the central conflict of her story. Zaleekhah has just separated from her husband and is now living alone for the first time. The houseboat that she rents serves as a symbol of her isolation and uprootedness. The loneliness and heartache emanating from the end of a relationship, and the lack of permanence or stability that a home on the water embodies, indicates that Zaleekhah’s character arc revolves around finding a true home and family. Zaleekhah’s loneliness is contextualized by the personal tragedy that touched her life when she was a child when she lost her parents to a flash flood. This left her with a perpetual sadness and inability to feel at home anywhere or completely loved by anyone. Although Zaleekhah was raised by her uncle, she feels more gratitude than love toward him; thus, she has spent a good part of her life trying to meet his expectations and ensure that she is not a burden. Although she has had a physical home and biological family around her all her life, Zaleekhah has not felt rooted or connected to a place or person for most of her life.
Zaleekhah’s relationship with Nen provides the way forward in resolving this personal conflict. In Nen, Zaleekhah finds someone who sees her in her entirety: Nen understands and holds space for Zaleekhah’s depression, having struggled with “melancholy” herself. Nen also provides Zaleekhah with a new way of experiencing the world. This is the first relationship that Zaleekhah has had with a woman, which already pushes her to contend with preconceived notions of herself. Nen further holds up a mirror to Zaleekhah’s relationship with her uncle, allowing her to see the difference between love and gratitude. Nen tattooing Zaleekhah is a symbolic act, signifying the lasting change that she has brought to Zaleekhah’s life. When Zaleekhah feels betrayed and let down by her uncle’s unethical choices, it is Nen who forms an emotional safety net and support system. Through Nen, Zaleekhah finds both a place and a person to call home.
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By Elif Shafak
