A Handful of Dates

“A Handful of Dates” is a coming-of-age story that exemplifies the pain of reconciling with the harsh realities of adulthood, specifically humans Greed for Riches and Power. While not a traditional frame story, Salih structures the story as a boyhood memory. This narrative choice allows the narrator, who tells the story from the first-person point of view, to reflect further and add meaning to his experience of losing his idealized view of his grandfather. Framing the story as a memory allows the narrative to present, early in the story, the boy’s adoration of and desire to be just like his grandfather, whom he compares to the tall and powerful giants in his imagination. The narrative portrays the devolution of the relationship as the grandfather describes the process of buying out the land from the “indolent” Masood, and the narrator reflects on wishing that his grandfather would not continue to exploit him. Finally, the reflective, linear structure of the text builds toward the end of the story when he observes Masood’s exploitation with his own eyes, in which he physically remembers experiencing pain and forces himself to vomit. Framing the story as a linear memory portrays the trajectory of Disillusionment With the Adult World as the narrator experiences it, building empathy and a sense of growing emotional complexity.

The primary conflict of the story surrounds a date harvest. The narrator, who follows his grandfather everywhere, observes the conflict as if from a distance as he watches the land owner, Masood, and the other men oversee his harvest. The conflict builds to a climax as the narrator describes the men taking the entirety of Masood’s date harvest and peaks as the grandfather informs him that Masood is “still fifty pounds in debt to [him]” (94). Salih builds tension through the suspense of Masood’s actions, describing him as “aloof,” as the suspicion has entered his mind that the grandfather will take his crops. After the harvest, Masood moves “with extreme slowness, like a man who wants to retreat but whose feet insist on going forward” (93), building tension with his reluctance to join the men who will eventually take everything from him. Finally, the tone becomes foreboding as the story compares Masood to helpless animals through the use of similes, first comparing him to “two mice that have lost their way home,” with his eyes “darting about to left and right,” and later comparing him to “a lamb being slaughtered” (94). Similes that compare Masood to symbolically powerless animals highlight the exploitation of the weak, contributing to the undercurrent of disillusionment in the face of exploitation.

To further emphasize the injustice of the exploitation of the weak, Salih incorporates a nature motif throughout the story, utilizing native trees, a river, and a field to highlight the rural, religious, and spiritual values of the Sudanese people, and the partnership between the land and its people. Salih juxtaposes the grandfather’s materialistic, exploitative values with the peaceful, simple ways of the traditional landowner Masood and uses natural motifs to highlight the value in those ways. Early on in the text, the narrator describes his love for the river, detailing days when he would finish his religious studies and run to swim in the river. He romanticizes this setting and says that he “would sit on the bank and gaze at the strip of water that wound away eastwards and hid behind a thick wood of acacia trees” (90), personifying the river to associate it with wisdom and quiet power. It was at this location that he would let his imagination run free and where he would daydream about giants, his grandfather, and the man he would become. Connecting these boyhood dreams to water and nature emphasizes the idyllic nature of childhood memories, making the nostalgia and disillusionment of the story more poignant. By the end of the text, after realizing that his grandfather has been intentionally exploiting Masood, the narrator returns to the river and the native trees as if he feels safer and supported in nature for the life and love it brings him as compared to his grandfather’s extractive mindset.

The narrator’s first-person point of view draws readers to feel sympathy for Masood, the foil character of the grandfather and the victim of the story, instead of viewing the grandfather as the savvy, business-minded hero that he describes himself as. As the grandfather describes buying off Masood’s land, the narrator reveals that “he felt fear at his grandfather’s words—and pity for [his] neighbor Masood” (92). He recalls Masood’s shabby clothing and his weak donkey, and wishes that his grandfather would not buy more land from him. This starkly contrasts the grandfather, who is described as tall and thin, with a soft, beautiful white beard. The first-person perspective adds emotional weight to a business transaction, undermining morality, generosity, and cruelty. This narrative technique emphasizes the injustices of capitalist values as they are absorbed into peaceful rural communities, turning neighbor against neighbor and becoming a model of adult behavior that the grandfather seeks to teach his grandson.