A Hope More Powerful Than the Sea

“Doaa confided that she felt trapped as a girl. Why couldn’t she be independent and build her own life? Why did it always have to be linked to a man’s?”

Doaa’s desire for independence and her determined resilience will help her through the difficult times ahead. The sense of unfairness which affects her as a teenager will only increase by the plight of trying to escape a civil war. But moments such as this, when Doaa complains to her mother about feeling trapped, help to foreshadow the qualities in her character which will help her to survive when all hope seems lost. 

“She realized that everything she’d grown up believing about her country was wrong.”

The power of the protests isn’t limited to the change in political regime. The violence in the streets opens Doaa’s eyes to the true nature of the government that she has known her entire life. The irony of her wanting to be a police officer reinforces this change in perspective. Had Doaa gotten her wish and become an instrument of state control, she would have found herself on the opposite side of the protests. The protests are a moment of awakening for Doaa, fundamentally shifting the accustomed and accepted paradigms of her life. 

“Doaa’s conversations with her friends were no longer about boys, marriage, or neighborhood gossip. Now they talked only about resistance and rebellion.”

Though Doaa is still a teenager, the protests against the government are forcing her to grow up fast. There is the sense that Doaa feels robbed of the typical teenager experience, that she cannot fully enjoy her life because she has dedicated herself to the fight for freedom. The time that Doaa dedicates to the rebellion is not only endangering her life, but it is endangering her childhood and ability to grow up and enjoy herself just like any other teenager. 

“One soldier even pointed his gun at Hamudi, who was only six at the time. Trembling in fear, he clung to his mother.”

The brutal irony of the siege is that—in their search for terrorists—the government forces are terrorizing the people of the neighborhood. They ransack houses and point their guns at young children, striking fear into the hearts of those they are trying to protect. This unrelenting, undirected viciousness blurs the line between the soldiers and the ‘terrorists’ who they are trying to find, forcing people to ask which side is truly the terrorists. 

“Hamudi would cry every time he heard a loud noise, and the sounds of the bombs outside made him hysterical.”

The physical effects of living in a warzone quickly become evident. The damage appears on the bodies of the children, making them thin, pale, and covered in stress-related sores. Hamudi appears to suffer from a condition akin to shell-shock and, though he is still a young boy, the violence which surrounds him drives him to madness. Scraping together whatever they can to survive, it is evident that the family cannot remain in Syria. Even if they can eat and avoid the soldiers, the physical and mental damage done by the world around them will soon be irreversible. 

“As she walked around the parking area, she saw rows of cars full of people trapped as she was.”

The people trapped inside the cars have an important symbolic value: They are trapped in their cars and in their situations. The long line of people trying to escape into Syria is a physical manifestation of the desperation of the people to escape. They feel trapped in an impossible situation in Syria, where the violence could lead to their death on any given day. Just as they remain trapped in their cars waiting to cross the border, they remain trapped in a metaphorical sense, forced to confront a situation which seems almost impossible. 

“She pictured her small teddy bear that lit up and made a kissing sound when she squeezed it, and her fashion sketches of the clothes she dreamed of wearing in a future she no longer had.”

This incident at the ferry port is a pressing reminder that, for all of Doaa’s determination and strength, she is still just a young girl. Though her bag includes a few essentials, she has left behind a stuffed animal (a symbol of her youth) and the sketches she made of clothes she will never wear (symbols of the future that the war has taken from her). That these items are her first concerns when thinking of home underscores the devastating effect that the war has on those who are still teenagers, teenagers who would barely have graduated high school in most countries. 

“Doaa threw herself into cleaning, doing what she could to take control of her new situation.”

Doaa’s life has been a search for purpose. Even when she must leave her home and abandon the revolution which satisfied her need for some time, she is still searching for a way in which she can make her life satisfying. Cleaning the new apartment is only a small act but it nevertheless provides Doaa with an opportunity to be useful. She helps her family; though the scale of the job is small, it helps to scratch an itch which has bothered Doaa for her entire life. 

“She continued to stubbornly drag the suitcase, step by step, up to the apartment.”

Doaa’s determination and single-mindedness can sometimes get the better of her. While this attitude has seen her become embroiled in political demonstrations, it also prevents her from making friends. She refuses the help of Bassem and drags the suitcase up the long flight of stairs even though she is struggling. She does not want to relinquish any sense of control or agency, even in minor matters. The determination which dominates Doaa’s personality can lead her into difficult, dangerous, and awkward situations, though this time it ironically leads to her finding a husband. 

“When Doaa found out, she was furious.”

Bassem is in love with Doaa and is determined to convince her to marry him, but his approach reveals how little he knows about the woman he supposedly loves. His offer of supporting her financially so that she will not need to work will remove Doaa’s sense of purpose and agency, the very values that she esteems above all others. In offering to help her, he is offering to take away the one thing which gives her life meaning. This infuriates Doaa and Bassem is even further away from convincing her to love him than ever before. 

“The weight of responsibility that she once felt for keeping the family afloat was now shared with Bassem. She realized what a good feeling it was to be supported and protected.”

For the first time since she arrived in Syria, Doaa finally feels the weight of responsibility lifted from her shoulders, even if it is only slightly. She has worked herself into the hospital in order to make sure that her family has enough to eat and pay rent. The relationship she has with Bassem not only provides her with emotional sustenance and a feeling of love, but it allows her to ease the burden that has caused her to feel so much pain and responsibility. Doaa, though still young, is allowing another person into her life and beginning to learn the mutual benefits of doing so. 

“If any of you parents send your children to our schools, they will be returned back to you cut into pieces.”

The atmosphere in Egypt changes quickly. From a welcoming, accepting attitude, the Syrian refugees suddenly find that Egyptians no longer want them in the country. The above quote is demonstrative of this atmosphere of violence. Child refugees—people who pose a minimal threat—receive threats of torture and murder for the crime of attending school. The viciousness with which these threats happen is akin to the kind of violence that many of the refugees fled Syria to escape. In leaving their home, they have found another country where the threat of violence seems just as pernicious. 

“She knew those boats were small, decrepit, and overcrowded and had heard stories of boats sinking and refugees drowning.”

The thought of crossing the Mediterranean on a smuggler’s boat combines many of Doaa’s worst fears. First, the thought of falling overboard terrifies the girl who cannot swim and, when she was young, nearly drowned. Secondly, it removes her agency. If she makes such a journey, she will have to surrender control of her situation. She will have to rely on the smugglers and the kindness of the authorities in the destination country. Doaa will lose her ability to take control of her life and be useful. As well as physical terror, the idea presents and emotional terror at the same time. 

“No kindness or welcome was in his voice.”

This quote appears shortly after Doaa makes her tearful goodbye to her family. The love and compassion of that interaction contrasts with her first meeting with one of the smugglers. For all of the kindness that she felt from her mother and siblings, there is none emanating from this particular man. This foreshadows the kind of world into which Doaa and Bassem are entering. The human smugglers are cold-hearted profiteers and criminals who are only interested in money and their own self-interest. There is no space in their lives for kindness, as Doaa is beginning to discover. 

“She then placed ten pounds in Doaa’s hand for a sandwich and began reciting a prayer from the Quran.”

After two failed attempts to cross the Mediterranean, Doaa’s view of the world is becoming negative. Unable to return home, unable to continue in Europe, she’s suffered beatings, extortion, lies, police shooting at her, arrest, and detainment. In a section of the book where the world has seemingly turned against her, the treatment of her by the staff in the hospital renews her optimism. It is a sign that, even in a country which has turned against the refugees, there are still kind and caring people. The nurse treats Doaa with care and pity, qualities which have been lacking from Doaa’s world for too long. 

“Of all the smugglers that Doaa and Bassem had dealt with in their previous attempts to leave, these were the roughest and most cruel.”

The extent to which Doaa and Bassem have failed in their attempts to cross to Europe are evident in their newfound ability to differentiate between the cruelty of the various smugglers. Of all the smugglers they have encountered so far, those they meet on their third attempt are the worst. This represents the raising of the stakes, an even greater obstacle to overcome. Not only are the couple fighting against the sea, the security forces, and fate to get to Europe, but the people who are meant to be shepherding them across are cruel and rough, making their journey even more difficult. 

“Once they set off, the crew, in a pathetic attempt to show benevolence, walked the deck handing out tins of expired and rotten processed meat.”

The true extent of the smugglers’ capacity for cruelty arises the longer the characters spend on the boat. Even after running across beaches, dodging bullets, and leaving loved ones behind, the only reward the passengers receive is a tin of rotten meat. Many have paid their life savings to make this journey and all they get in return is potentially poisonous. Fleming shows the true plight of the refugees at every step, while she paints the smugglers as particularly malicious and nefarious villains. 

“Everyone adamantly refused to move. Confronted by the passengers’ resolve, the smugglers had no choice but to oblige.”

In the final lines of the chapter, however, the passengers win a victory over the cruel smugglers. After days on the boat, they have formed bonds with one another. Their newfound solidarity gives them the strength to stand up to the smugglers and make demands. At sea, adrift for days, it becomes clear that the real power lies with the passengers and the smugglers are mostly powerless to refuse. 

‘“I’m sorry, but he’s dead,’ he told her apathetically.”

Bassem’s death is a tragedy to Doaa, one of the defining moments of her life. She has lost everything, the most precious person in her life who she was going to spend her future with in Europe. But to the man swimming beside her, it is just another death. Hundreds have died and the sheer scale of the loss has removed most people’s capacity to feel emotion at the passing of a person. So many deaths have diminished this man’s capacity to mourn for a person to whom he has no personal relation. The reality of the situation is that so many have died, one death is no longer worthy of note, even if it is the death of the most important figure in Doaa’s life. 

“She would last long enough to know that she has saved the little girls, then she could finally stop struggling and be with Bassem again.”

Following the death of Bassem, the only reason Doaa is still alive is the babies she clings to her chest. She can barely swim, she hates the water, and everyone around her is already dead. But the same determination to be useful is evident once again. She is not trying to survive for her own sake, but for the sake of the children in her arms. In order to give her life purpose, she is clinging to life against all of the odds and defying her greatest fears. Doaa has lost everything but her determination and it is this very determination which will help her to survive. 

“The ship slowed to avoid hitting the bodies.”

The rescue of Doaa creates a narrative parallel with the attack. During the attack, Doaa realized that the angry men were about to ram the boat. While the attackers intentionally sped up with the intention of doing as much harm as possible, the rescue ship actively slows down in order to avoid doing damage to people who are already dead. The juxtaposition between these two actions creates a telling narrative correlation, in which drowning is associated with speeding up to attack and rescue is associated with slowing down out of caution. 

“Carefully, they lifted her onto a cot and laid a soft pillow under her head.”

Just as there was a contrast between the attack boat and the rescue boat, there is a contrast in the actions of the smugglers and the crew who rescue Doaa. While the smugglers crammed the refugees into a decrepit old boat and fed them rotting meat, the rescuers treat her as kindly as possible and share their food and water with her. Furthermore, the smugglers operate on a profit motif. Their malicious treatment stems from the vast sums of money they make from each person attempting to make the crossing. But the kind actions of the rescue crew are actively harming the profits of the company they work for. They have diverted their journey to search for survivors at the cost to their employers. In every possible way, the rescue crew are the opposite of the smugglers. 

“With a huge smile on her face, Doaa felt a surge of happiness for the first time since the shipwreck.”

Doaa’s entire life has been a search for purpose. She has tried to find meaning in her life, whether it is working to support her family or protesting against her oppressive government. When she does not have a purpose in her life, she is depressed. In the aftermath of the shipwreck, when she has lost almost everything, it is the renewed sense of purpose which brings happiness back into her life. Reuniting Masa with her family is an achievement. It justifies the long hard days that Doaa spent caring for the baby. It was an altruistic act and one which has provided a sense of accomplishment. After the tragedies she has endured, this renewed sense of purpose demonstrates to Doaa that there is a life worth living.