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Simile
Explanation and Analysis—Black Sorrow:
After he discovers Sohrab’s attempted suicide, Amir uses a simile comparing sorrow to a black night and describes grief as a physical invasion to describe his overwhelming sadness:
I picture Sohrab’s face, the pointed meaty chin, his small seashell ears, his slanting bamboo-leaf eyes so much like his father’s. A sorrow as black as the night outside invades me, and I feel my throat clamping.
The image of sorrow as “black as the night” creates a feeling of total darkness and suffocation in this scene. At this point in the novel Sohrab believes he’s going to be put in an orphanage and abandoned by Amir; he attempts suicide to avoid that fate. Amir is horrified and grieved when he discovers what Sohrab has done. By comparing his sadness to the deep, endless black of night, Amir demonstrates how all-encompassing his grief is. It offers no space for hope or escape. In this moment the idea of the night does not offer rest or peace for Amir.
Describing grief as a force that “invades” his body strengthens the reader’s sense that Amir has no control over his emotions at this point. After he hears what happened to Sohrab, sorrow acts on Amir like a natural force. It crosses into his body without permission. It is not just a feeling he’s having, but an affliction that physically changes how he breathes and speaks. The image of his throat “clamping” shows how strong sorrow’s effects are on his body. He is so heartbroken that the dark cloud hanging over him is stopping him from breathing.
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