The Sympathizer: Chapter 22 Summary & Analysis

The Commandant accuses the narrator of being unwilling to sacrifice himself to save the Communist agent, though she was willing to sacrifice her life to save the Commissar’s. The narrator admits that he’s a man who’s guilty of the crime of doing nothing. The Commandant says that the injuries that the crapulent major and that Sonny suffered are not equal to those suffered by the Communist agent. She couldn’t walk when they liberated her. They found the policemen and made them pay “the price.” The Commandant wonders if the narrator should pay the same price.

The narrator says that he wishes he were dead. He figures that Man will finally release him “from this small world with its small minded people,” who treat “a man with two minds and two faces as a freak.” Man puts his gun down on the floor and kneels by the narrator’s side. He unties the sack from around his right hand and then unties the rope binding it. The narrator holds his hand before his eyes, looking at his scar. Man places the pistol—a Soviet gun called the Tokarev, whose design is based on the American Colt—in the narrator’s hand. Man leans forward, pressing the muzzle between his eyes and steadying the narrator’s hand. “Why are you doing this?” the narrator asks. Man says he thinks that this is the only way in which he can save the narrator.

Man says that they’re in an impossible situation. The Commandant will only let the narrator leave after he redeems himself. That leaves the matter of what will happen to Bon. The narrator says that he won’t leave without Bon. Man surmises that the narrator will die in prison then. He presses the barrel of the gun against his head even harder. Man asks the narrator to shoot him. He wonders how “a teacher” can teach something that he doesn’t believe. He wonders how he can continue to live in his condition. He asks the narrator to pull the trigger.

The narrator tries to pull the gun away from Man’s head and put it toward his own, but he doesn’t have the strength. He sees the ghosts of Sonny and the crapulent major behind Man. They stare with longing at the gun, wanting to shoot the narrator. Man apologizes for being selfish in wishing for death. If he dies, then the narrator and Bon will surely die too. The Commandant can’t wait to drag Bon out to a firing squad. Still, Man won’t release the narrator from the prison until he can answer his question about freedom, though the Commandant is willing to let the narrator go for admitting that he wanted his father dead. Man gets up, raises his hand in farewell, and exits the room.

The overhead speakers click on in the narrator’s room and release the sound of a screaming baby. The narrator finds it impossible to think. A clicking sound makes him realize that he’s listening to a tape. He wonders if he screamed like this at his mother when he was an infant. The narrator wonders who’s screaming. The sound transports him back to the lost memory of his birth. Finally, he realizes that the “somebody” who is screaming is him. He’s screaming his answer to Man’s question: “Nothing!” This time, however, the narrator believes his answer. He has embraced nothingness as the only true state. He is enlightened.