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Part 3, Chapter 17
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Forty Rules of Love, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Love and Spirituality
Connections Across Distance and Time
Appearances vs. Reality
Storytelling and Truth
Summary
Analysis
Kerra. Konya, October 22, 1245. Kerra continues to feel excluded from the conversations Shams and Rumi have behind closed doors. She reacts harshly to a simple compliment that Shams gives to her food, and he notices something wrong. One day, Kerra walks in on Shams throwing Rumi’s favorite books into a fountain, ruining them. Rumi is nearby, pale and trembling, but saying nothing. Kerra yells at Rumi to do something, but he says that he trusts Shams. To everyone’s surprise, Shams pulls the books back out of water and they are totally dry.
Kerra knows how important Rumi’s books are to him, so she gets angry at Shams for seeming to destroy them. By contrast, however, Rumi has come to trust Shams, and his lack of concern for the books shows how Rumi has begun to let go of earthly matters, even his most valuable possessions. The fact that Shams doesn’t destroy the books after all shows how Rumi’s trust in him has been rewarded.
Active
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