Brotherless Night

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue-Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Jaffna Eyes

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and rape.

In the first chapter in Brotherless Night, titled “The Boys With the Jaffna Eyes,” Sashi describes her brothers’ and K’s dark eyes that symbolize their depth, intensity, and intelligence. She says that their eyes represent “these Tamil men [she] love[s] and who belong[] with [her]” (11). Their eyes connect them to their country and its causes. She says, “All of them had what some people call Jaffna eyes—dark and piercing. If you have seen such eyes, you will know what I mean” (11). She believes that their eyes are so distinctive that they are instantly recognizable.

Later, however, the same Jaffna eyes assume a sinister quality as they foreshadow the passionate intensity with which K, Dayalan, and Seelan will commit themselves to the Tigers. At the disastrous political rally near the beginning of the book, Niranjan spots K talking to someone who appears to be a militant. As Niranjan coaxes K away from the scene, Sashi says, “K glanced back at the other man, whose Jaffna eyes were trained on them” (38). K has become a target, either for recruitment or elimination. As Sashi acknowledges later, all the young men of Jaffna were destined for war: “The boys with the Jaffna eyes slipped out of their beds or classrooms, turned their faces from their mothers, fathers, sisters, and teachers, and walked to the sea” (94). They drown themselves in the militant movement, leaving behind family and friends, as they set their piercing, determined gazes on an unobtainable victory.

Tamil: Language and Identity

While the Sri Lankan government, run by the Sinhalese majority, works to suppress the language and culture of the Tamil minority, it largely fails in that endeavor; even violence and civil war will not erase the bonds between people like Sashi and her family and their Tamil identity. Sashi’s reluctance to leave Sri Lanka is tied to this connection. As the first epigraph in the book states, “There is no life for me apart from my people.” This rings true for Sashi and several other characters in the novels, like Anjali, Varathan, and even members of the Tamil Tigers, like K and Seelan. Even after Sashi flees the country, she never abandons her people. In the novel, the Tamil language serves as a motif that represents the resilience of identity in the midst of conflict.

When the riots occur in Colombo, Sashi’s grandmother speaks to her in Tamil, “as though what she [i]s telling [Sashi] c[an] only be known in Tamil” (62). Ammammah speaks of past riots, displacements, and violence committed against the Tamils; these atrocities—and the Tamil people’s continued survival in the face of them—can only be clearly conveyed in the context of shared language and identity. Sashi also describes K’s death by invoking the Tamil language; she writes, “And although I have told you this story in English, you must remember, we were in Tamil. A private language for me now, here, and I remember saying that as though it were private” (258). Her description merges the two of them (“we were in Tamil”)—as they will never be in life—and distances the readers from the privacy of her loss and grief.

Finally, the significance of the Tamil language—particularly its connection to a specific identity and a specific place—is emphasized as Sashi contemplates leaving Sri Lanka. When Sashi takes leave of her grandmother, Sashi tells her, “‘I go only to return,’ […] because Tamil has no words for last goodbyes” (303). Later, when Sashi physically resides in New York, she says that she is “safe and free and never home” (306). This is why she continues her work on the Reports and tells the history of her people and their identity.

India and the Indian Peace Keeping Force

India looms large as a symbol of solidarity to the Tamil minority and, thus, to the militants. However, this relationship becomes more complicated (and more violent) over time. In the early days of the civil uprising, many of the Tamil militants seek training in India because it is “a place where [they] might find sympathy” (93). There are Tamil speakers in India, as well, particularly in the southern state of Tamil Nadu; the groups share a common language and religion, though they are culturally distinct. This becomes abundantly clear when the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) is deployed to Sri Lanka.

The assassination of Indira Gandhi, the prime minister of India, in 1984 marks a turning point in the Sri Lankan civil war and in the relationship between the Tamil insurgents and the Indian forces. The prime minister was (at least vocally) supportive of the militants, and upon her death, the Sinhalese soldiers reemerge to “taunt” the Tamils. Without the support of “Mother India” (232), the government-backed Sri Lankan soldiers do not believe that the insurgents have a chance. Indeed, the militants rely on India for supplies and training, while the Tamil civilians ultimately have to depend on Indian aid for food. However, the relationship turns sour when the IPKF negotiates a settlement that requires the militants to relinquish their weapons—this is a resolution to which the Tamil Tigers will never agree.

In addition, the IPKF overstays its welcome, and there are reports that these troops commit acts of random violence and rape. As Sashi understands it, “The Tamil civilians, who had originally welcomed [the Indians’] arrival, quickly realised that rather than finding relief from the Tamil militants and the Sri Lankan forces, they had invited yet another antagonist into the room” (235). Thus, K embarks on the hunger strike that will kill him in an attempt to force the IPKF to leave Sri Lanka. By the late 1980s, the IPKF is better known by its nickname, “the Innocent People Killing Force” (274), than by its actual moniker. These events highlight that the corrosive nature of violence infects even the best intentions.