Home Fire

by

Kamila Shamsie

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Karamat Lone Character Analysis

Karamat is Eamonn and Emily’s father, and Terry’s husband. Karamat’s character matches that of King Creon in Sophocles’s Antigone. Throughout the novel, Shamsie gradually reveals information about Karamat’s life before he is appointed as the Home Secretary for Britain. Karamat grew up as the son of Pakistani immigrants and was a practicing Muslim. He then married Terry, a wealthy Irish-American woman. Isma implies that money was a large factor in his marriage, as was a desire to integrate with the white British majority, which is one of the reasons for Eamonn’s Irish name. Karamat was a Member of Parliament when criticism emerged following the publication of a picture of him entering a mosque. When Karamat protested that he was just going for funeral prayers and would otherwise never enter a “gender-segregated space,” his Muslim constituency voted him out and he was re-elected in a district with a primarily white constituency. Many characters view Karamat as a politician who is willing to turn his back on Muslims for political gain, but Shamsie reveals in Karamat’s chapters that the reality is more complicated: he truly believes in Islam but also sees that Britain has given his parents and himself far more opportunity than Pakistan ever could. Additionally, because of discrimination in Britain, he often felt that he had to distance himself from his faith in order to be accepted as a British person—in contrast to people like Isma and Aneeka, who choose to adhere to their faith at the cost of facing the same discrimination. Karamat also has a complicated relationship with Eamonn, whom he feels is entitled and lacks ambition, even though he recognizes that Karamat’s own hard work and Terry’s wealth are things that made Eamonn this way.

Karamat Lone Quotes in Home Fire

The Home Fire quotes below are all either spoken by Karamat Lone or refer to Karamat Lone. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Islam, Nationality, and Identity. Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 – Isma Quotes

All the old muck. He meant the picture of Karamat Lone entering a mosque that had been in the news for its “hate preacher.” LONE WOLF’S PACK REVEALED, the headlines screamed when a tabloid got hold of it, near the end of his first term as an MP. The Lone Wolf's response had been to point out that the picture was several years old, he had been there only for his uncle’s funeral prayers and would otherwise never enter a gender-segregated space. This was followed by pictures of him and his wife walking hand in hand into a church.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Eamonn Lone, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone, Terry Lone
Related Symbols: Hijab
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s harder for him,” he said. “Because of his background. Early on, in particular, he had to be more careful than any other MP, and at times that meant doing things he regretted. But everything he did, even the wrong choices, were because he had a sense of purpose. Public service, national good, British values […].”

There he sat, his father’s son. It didn’t matter if they were on this or that side of the political spectrum, or whether the fathers were absent or present, or if someone else had loved them better, loved them more: in the end they were always their fathers' sons.

Related Characters: Eamonn Lone (speaker), Parvaiz Pasha, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone, Adil Pasha
Page Number: 44
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 – Eamonn Quotes

“Especially not him. He says you are what you make of yourself.” He raised and lowered his shoulders. “Unless you’re his son. Then he indulges you even if you don’t make anything of yourself.”
“He indulges you?”
“Yes. My sister’s like him, so she gets all the expectation. I get the pampering and the free passes.”
“Do you mind that?”
“I mind a lot. And you’re the first person to ever guess that might be the case.”

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha (speaker), Eamonn Lone (speaker), Karamat Lone, Emily Lone
Page Number: 81
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 – Eamonn Quotes

You are, we are, British. Britain accepts this. So do most of you. But for those of you who are in some doubt about it, let me say this: Don’t set yourself apart in the way you dress, the way you think, the outdated codes of behavior you cling to, the ideologies to which you attach your loyalties. Because if you do, you will be treated differently—not because of racism, though that does still exist, but because you insist on your difference from everyone else in this multiethnic, multireligious, multitudinous United Kingdom of ours. And look at all you miss out on because of it.

Related Characters: Karamat Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha, Eamonn Lone, Isma Pasha
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:

The video wouldn’t reveal the things that were most striking about her in those moments: the intensity of her concentration, how completely it could swerve from her God to him in the time she took those few footsteps, or her total lack of self-consciousness in everything she did—love and prayer, the covered head and the naked body.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Eamonn Lone, Karamat Lone
Related Symbols: Hijab
Page Number: 90-91
Explanation and Analysis:

“That’s my twin. I’ve spent every day the last six months sick with worry about him. Now he wants to come home. But your father is unforgiving, particularly about people like him. So I’m not going to get my brother back. […] half of me is always there, wondering if he’s alive, what he’s doing, what he’s done. I'm so tired of it. I want to be here, completely. With you.”

It was what she’d say if she were still only trying to manipulate him. It was what she’d say if she’d really fallen in love with him.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha (speaker), Eamonn Lone, Parvaiz Pasha, Karamat Lone
Page Number: 102
Explanation and Analysis:

Who is this posh English boy with my face, the father would say, sometimes with disappointment, sometimes with pride. Who you made me, so blame yourself the son would reply, and his father would respond with either There is no blame, my jaan, my life or That was your mother’s doing, not mine.

Related Characters: Eamonn Lone (speaker), Karamat Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha, Parvaiz Pasha, Isma Pasha
Page Number: 107
Explanation and Analysis:

“There are still moments of stress when I’ll recite Ayat al-Kursi as a kind of reflex.”

“ls that a prayer?”

“Yes. Ask your girlfriend about it. Actually, no, I’d prefer it if you didn’t mention it to anyone.”

“You shouldn't have to hide that kind of thing.”

“I’d be nervous about a home secretary who’s spoken openly about his atheism but secretly recites Muslim prayers. Wouldn’t you?”

Related Characters: Eamonn Lone (speaker), Karamat Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 – Aneeka Quotes

Why the secrecy? Why do you think? Because of men like you with your notepads and your recorders. Because I wanted him to want to do anything for me before I asked him to do something for my brother. Why shouldn't I admit it? What would you stop at to help the people you love most?

[…]

When they left there was Isma, wounded and appalled.

“Don't look at me like that. If you liked him you should have done it yourself. Why didn't you love our brother enough to do it yourself?”

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha (speaker), Eamonn Lone, Parvaiz Pasha, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone
Page Number: 199-200
Explanation and Analysis:

Aneeka “Knickers” Pasha, the 19-year-old twin sister of Muslim fanatic Parvaiz “Pervy” Pasha has been revealed as her brother’s accomplice. She hunted down the Home Secretary's son, Eamonn, 24, and used sex to try and brainwash him into convincing his father to allow her terrorist brother back into England.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Eamonn Lone, Parvaiz Pasha, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone
Related Symbols: Hijab
Page Number: 214
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 – Karamat Quotes

“She’s going to look for justice in Pakistan?” That final word spoken with all the disgust of a child of migrants who understands how much his Parents gave up—family, context, language, familiarity—because the nation to which they first belonged had proven itself inadequate to the task of allowing them to live with dignity.

Related Characters: Karamat Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha
Page Number: 227
Explanation and Analysis:

“Please don’t try to develop a spine. You weren’t built for it. Did she give you your first really great blow job, Eamonn? Is that what this is about? Because trust me, there are better ones out there.”

A pause, and then his son’s voice at its most cuttingly posh: “I think we’re done here, Father.”

Related Characters: Eamonn Lone (speaker), Karamat Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha, Parvaiz Pasha, Terry Lone
Page Number: 231
Explanation and Analysis:

She couldn’t return to the UK on her Pakistani passport without applying for a visa, which she was certainly welcome to do if she wanted to waste her time and money. As for her British passport, which had been confiscated by the security services when she tried to join her brother in Istanbul, it was neither lost nor stolen nor expired and therefore there were no grounds for her to apply for a new one. Let her continue to be British; but let her be British outside Britain.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Parvaiz Pasha, Karamat Lone
Page Number: 242-243
Explanation and Analysis:

Probably a virgin, he thought, and wondered when he’d become the kind of man who reacted in this way to the sight of a woman with a covered head who made no effort to look anything but plain.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone
Related Symbols: Hijab
Page Number: 247
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 – Karamat Quotes

She has been abused for the crime of daring to love while covering her head, vilified for believing that she had the right to want a life with someone whose history is at odds with hers, denounced for wanting to bury her brother beside her mother, reviled for her completely legal protests against a decision by the home secretary that suggests personal animus. […] Where is the crime in this? Dad, please tell me, where is the crime?

Related Characters: Eamonn Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha, Karamat Lone
Page Number: 259
Explanation and Analysis:

The man with the explosives around his waist holds up both his hands to stop her from coming to him. “Run!” he shouts. “Get away from me, run!” And run she does, crashing right into him, a judder of the camera as the man holding it on his shoulder flinches in expectation of a blast. At first the man in the navy shirt struggles, but her arms are around him, she whispers something, and he stops. She rests her cheek against his, he drops his head to kiss her shoulder. For a moment they are two lovers in a park, under an ancient tree, sun-dappled, beautiful, and at peace.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Eamonn Lone, Parvaiz Pasha, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone, Adil Pasha
Page Number: 274
Explanation and Analysis:
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Karamat Lone Quotes in Home Fire

The Home Fire quotes below are all either spoken by Karamat Lone or refer to Karamat Lone. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Islam, Nationality, and Identity. Theme Icon
).
Chapter 2 – Isma Quotes

All the old muck. He meant the picture of Karamat Lone entering a mosque that had been in the news for its “hate preacher.” LONE WOLF’S PACK REVEALED, the headlines screamed when a tabloid got hold of it, near the end of his first term as an MP. The Lone Wolf's response had been to point out that the picture was several years old, he had been there only for his uncle’s funeral prayers and would otherwise never enter a gender-segregated space. This was followed by pictures of him and his wife walking hand in hand into a church.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Eamonn Lone, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone, Terry Lone
Related Symbols: Hijab
Page Number: 35
Explanation and Analysis:

“It’s harder for him,” he said. “Because of his background. Early on, in particular, he had to be more careful than any other MP, and at times that meant doing things he regretted. But everything he did, even the wrong choices, were because he had a sense of purpose. Public service, national good, British values […].”

There he sat, his father’s son. It didn’t matter if they were on this or that side of the political spectrum, or whether the fathers were absent or present, or if someone else had loved them better, loved them more: in the end they were always their fathers' sons.

Related Characters: Eamonn Lone (speaker), Parvaiz Pasha, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone, Adil Pasha
Page Number: 44
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 3 – Eamonn Quotes

“Especially not him. He says you are what you make of yourself.” He raised and lowered his shoulders. “Unless you’re his son. Then he indulges you even if you don’t make anything of yourself.”
“He indulges you?”
“Yes. My sister’s like him, so she gets all the expectation. I get the pampering and the free passes.”
“Do you mind that?”
“I mind a lot. And you’re the first person to ever guess that might be the case.”

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha (speaker), Eamonn Lone (speaker), Karamat Lone, Emily Lone
Page Number: 81
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 4 – Eamonn Quotes

You are, we are, British. Britain accepts this. So do most of you. But for those of you who are in some doubt about it, let me say this: Don’t set yourself apart in the way you dress, the way you think, the outdated codes of behavior you cling to, the ideologies to which you attach your loyalties. Because if you do, you will be treated differently—not because of racism, though that does still exist, but because you insist on your difference from everyone else in this multiethnic, multireligious, multitudinous United Kingdom of ours. And look at all you miss out on because of it.

Related Characters: Karamat Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha, Eamonn Lone, Isma Pasha
Page Number: 90
Explanation and Analysis:

The video wouldn’t reveal the things that were most striking about her in those moments: the intensity of her concentration, how completely it could swerve from her God to him in the time she took those few footsteps, or her total lack of self-consciousness in everything she did—love and prayer, the covered head and the naked body.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Eamonn Lone, Karamat Lone
Related Symbols: Hijab
Page Number: 90-91
Explanation and Analysis:

“That’s my twin. I’ve spent every day the last six months sick with worry about him. Now he wants to come home. But your father is unforgiving, particularly about people like him. So I’m not going to get my brother back. […] half of me is always there, wondering if he’s alive, what he’s doing, what he’s done. I'm so tired of it. I want to be here, completely. With you.”

It was what she’d say if she were still only trying to manipulate him. It was what she’d say if she’d really fallen in love with him.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha (speaker), Eamonn Lone, Parvaiz Pasha, Karamat Lone
Page Number: 102
Explanation and Analysis:

Who is this posh English boy with my face, the father would say, sometimes with disappointment, sometimes with pride. Who you made me, so blame yourself the son would reply, and his father would respond with either There is no blame, my jaan, my life or That was your mother’s doing, not mine.

Related Characters: Eamonn Lone (speaker), Karamat Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha, Parvaiz Pasha, Isma Pasha
Page Number: 107
Explanation and Analysis:

“There are still moments of stress when I’ll recite Ayat al-Kursi as a kind of reflex.”

“ls that a prayer?”

“Yes. Ask your girlfriend about it. Actually, no, I’d prefer it if you didn’t mention it to anyone.”

“You shouldn't have to hide that kind of thing.”

“I’d be nervous about a home secretary who’s spoken openly about his atheism but secretly recites Muslim prayers. Wouldn’t you?”

Related Characters: Eamonn Lone (speaker), Karamat Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha
Page Number: 110
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 – Aneeka Quotes

Why the secrecy? Why do you think? Because of men like you with your notepads and your recorders. Because I wanted him to want to do anything for me before I asked him to do something for my brother. Why shouldn't I admit it? What would you stop at to help the people you love most?

[…]

When they left there was Isma, wounded and appalled.

“Don't look at me like that. If you liked him you should have done it yourself. Why didn't you love our brother enough to do it yourself?”

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha (speaker), Eamonn Lone, Parvaiz Pasha, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone
Page Number: 199-200
Explanation and Analysis:

Aneeka “Knickers” Pasha, the 19-year-old twin sister of Muslim fanatic Parvaiz “Pervy” Pasha has been revealed as her brother’s accomplice. She hunted down the Home Secretary's son, Eamonn, 24, and used sex to try and brainwash him into convincing his father to allow her terrorist brother back into England.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Eamonn Lone, Parvaiz Pasha, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone
Related Symbols: Hijab
Page Number: 214
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 8 – Karamat Quotes

“She’s going to look for justice in Pakistan?” That final word spoken with all the disgust of a child of migrants who understands how much his Parents gave up—family, context, language, familiarity—because the nation to which they first belonged had proven itself inadequate to the task of allowing them to live with dignity.

Related Characters: Karamat Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha
Page Number: 227
Explanation and Analysis:

“Please don’t try to develop a spine. You weren’t built for it. Did she give you your first really great blow job, Eamonn? Is that what this is about? Because trust me, there are better ones out there.”

A pause, and then his son’s voice at its most cuttingly posh: “I think we’re done here, Father.”

Related Characters: Eamonn Lone (speaker), Karamat Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha, Parvaiz Pasha, Terry Lone
Page Number: 231
Explanation and Analysis:

She couldn’t return to the UK on her Pakistani passport without applying for a visa, which she was certainly welcome to do if she wanted to waste her time and money. As for her British passport, which had been confiscated by the security services when she tried to join her brother in Istanbul, it was neither lost nor stolen nor expired and therefore there were no grounds for her to apply for a new one. Let her continue to be British; but let her be British outside Britain.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Parvaiz Pasha, Karamat Lone
Page Number: 242-243
Explanation and Analysis:

Probably a virgin, he thought, and wondered when he’d become the kind of man who reacted in this way to the sight of a woman with a covered head who made no effort to look anything but plain.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone
Related Symbols: Hijab
Page Number: 247
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 9 – Karamat Quotes

She has been abused for the crime of daring to love while covering her head, vilified for believing that she had the right to want a life with someone whose history is at odds with hers, denounced for wanting to bury her brother beside her mother, reviled for her completely legal protests against a decision by the home secretary that suggests personal animus. […] Where is the crime in this? Dad, please tell me, where is the crime?

Related Characters: Eamonn Lone (speaker), Aneeka Pasha, Karamat Lone
Page Number: 259
Explanation and Analysis:

The man with the explosives around his waist holds up both his hands to stop her from coming to him. “Run!” he shouts. “Get away from me, run!” And run she does, crashing right into him, a judder of the camera as the man holding it on his shoulder flinches in expectation of a blast. At first the man in the navy shirt struggles, but her arms are around him, she whispers something, and he stops. She rests her cheek against his, he drops his head to kiss her shoulder. For a moment they are two lovers in a park, under an ancient tree, sun-dappled, beautiful, and at peace.

Related Characters: Aneeka Pasha, Eamonn Lone, Parvaiz Pasha, Isma Pasha, Karamat Lone, Adil Pasha
Page Number: 274
Explanation and Analysis: