The Inheritance of Loss

The Inheritance of Loss

by

Kiran Desai

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Inheritance of Loss makes teaching easy.

Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) Term Analysis

A violent movement created in the 1980s by Subhash Ghisingh, on which much of the political conflict in Desai’s novel is centered, and which Gyan briefly joins. The GNLF called for a separate state called “Gorkhaland” for the Nepalis in India, and turned particularly violent in 1985-1986. Various strikes and protests led to the deaths of over 1,200 people. An especially bloody conflict on July 27, 1986, serves as one of the book’s climactic scenes.

Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) Quotes in The Inheritance of Loss

The The Inheritance of Loss quotes below are all either spoken by Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) or refer to Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF). For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Colonialism and Globalization Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

His lines had been honed over centuries, passed down through generations, for poor people needed certain lines; the script was always the same, and they had no option but to beg for mercy. The cook knew instinctively how to cry.

Related Characters: The Cook
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

They surveyed the downfall of wealth with satisfaction, and one of the policemen kicked a shaky apparatus of pipes leading from the jhora stream, bandaged here and there with sopping rags.

Related Characters: The Judge / Jemubhai, Sai
Page Number: 13
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 21 Quotes

Noni: “Very unskilled at drawing borders, those bloody Brits.”

Mrs. Sen, diving right into the conversation: “No practice, na, water all around them, ha ha.”

Related Characters: Sai, Noni, Lola, Mrs. Sen
Page Number: 143
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 26 Quotes

It was a masculine atmosphere and Gyan felt a moment of shame remembering his tea parties with Sai on the veranda, the cheese toast, queen cakes from the baker, and even worse, the small warm space they inhabited together, the nursery talk—

It suddenly seemed against the requirements of his adulthood.

Related Characters: Sai, Gyan
Page Number: 177
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 37 Quotes

They rushed out: “This is our land!”

“It is not your land. It is free land,” they countered, putting down the sentence, flatly, rudely.

“It is our land.”

“It is unoccupied land.”

Related Characters: Noni (speaker), Lola (speaker)
Page Number: 264
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 38 Quotes

The wealth that seemed to protect them like a blanket was the very thing that left them exposed.

Related Characters: Noni, Lola
Page Number: 266
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Inheritance of Loss LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Inheritance of Loss PDF