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Part 5, Chapter 3: Fig Tree
Themes
and Colors
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Island of Missing Trees, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Generational Trauma
Nature and Interconnectedness
Love and Displacement
Solidarity, Tribalism, and Political Division
History and Silencing
Summary
Analysis
At The Happy Fig on the day Defne is set to have an abortion, she hears a commotion outside after Yusuf and Yiorgos go to check to see what the men at the door want. A gun goes off. When Defne makes her way outside, no one is there. She doesn’t know what happened. She suspects that the men had come to vandalize the tavern because they knew Yusuf and Yiorgos were gay. When the men tried to make their way inside, Defne thinks that Yusuf and Yiorgos confronted them, not so much to fight for themselves, but to protect Defne.
In this passage, Yusuf and Yiorgos become martyrs to the idea of solidarity. They have gone out of their way time and time again to support and protect Defne and Kostas. In this passage, they pay with their lives. Defne makes it clear that they acted not so much in their own defense but to protect her, showing the lengths to which they were willing to go to stand up and fight for what they believed in. That sacrifice on their part kills them and also leaves deep scars on Defne, as their disappearance is one of the traumatic events that will plague her for the rest of her life.
Active
Themes
Defne never sees Yusuf or Yiorgos again. After that, she decides that she’ll have the baby no matter what. Meryem helps Defne break the news to their parents that she is pregnant. Defne’s father is mortified. He says Defne has brought grave dishonor to their family’s name. To try to minimize the fallout of the pregnancy, Defne tells her parents that the father is Yusuf, who is Turkish and Muslim. Defne’s parents call Yusuf’s family and accuse them of things they don’t know anything about. Defne listens to all of it and hates herself for lying and dragging Yusuf into it.
Active
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