After the envoy left, Gjorg sat numbly in a corner of the stone house. He could look forward to thirty days of safety. After that, he would go about only in the dark like a bat, hiding from the sun, the moonlight, and the flicker of torches.
This passage appears shortly after Gjorg has been granted the long bessa. While this should have been a cause for relief, the quoted passage suggests otherwise. Indeed, Gjorg is acutely aware of the fact that his safety–and his life–is only temporary. Using the evocative simile comparing Gjorg to a bat, Kadaré demonstrates the extent to which Gjorg's life has been profoundly altered by the killing. Forced to hide from "the sun, the moonlight, and the flicker of torches" Gjorg has effectively been robbed of his humanity.
For a moment he felt as if he were trapped in bird-lime in the bloody part of the Kanun.
As Gjorg walks along to the Kulla of Orosh he tries to clear his mind, yet he finds himself thinking about the laws of the Kanun. He recalls that, according to the Kanun, "Priests have no part in the blood feud," and imagines that he might have become a priest (29). Realizing that this option is no longer possible, he feels "as if he were trapped in bird-lime in the bloody part of the Kanun" (30). Bird-lime is a sticky substance that is used to hunt birds. Through this simile, Gjorg is compared to an innocent bird, while the Kanun is, in a sense, a trap. Here, Gjorg thinks critically about the Kanun, and thus separates himself from those around him who follow it unquestioningly. At the same time, like a bird caught in quick-lime, Gjorg cannot escape the power of the Kanun.
His suspicion that he was not going in the right direction tormented him more and more. At last he had the conviction that he would never go anywhere but in the wrong direction, to the very end of the handful of days that was left to him, unhappy moonstruck pilgrim, whose April was to be cut off short.
This passage appears as Gjorg travels the High Plateau in search of Diana as the end of his bessa fast approaches. The passage highlights the existential dread that Gjorg is suffering through. He knows his life will be over soon and feels powerless to the point that he believes "he would never go anywhere but in the wrong direction." Kadaré makes it clear that Gjorg will be killed before the end of the novel, and here, he indicates that Gjorg is fully aware of this fact. For the reader, who has been encouraged to emphasize with Gjorg, this is a deeply saddening passage.
A year and half after the day that his brother had been killed, his mother had finally washed the shirt he had worn that day. For a year and a half it had hung blood-soaked from the upper story of the house, as the Kanun required, until the blood had been avenged. When bloodstains began to yellow, people said, it was a sure sign that the dead man was in torment, yearning for revenge. The shirt, an infallible barometer, indicated the time for vengeance. By means of the shirt the dead man sent his signals from the depths of the earth where he lay.
In this passage, Kadaré describes the practice of hanging of the bloodstained shirt of a man after he has been killed in a blood feud, and then washing it once the man has been avenged. The bloodstained shirt hanging on a washing-line is one of the most powerfully symbolic images in the novel. Here, Kadaré demonstrates the ways that the people of the High Plateau justify the continuation of the blood feuds, even if that justification is not rational. Of course, the yellowing of the bloodstains is an entirely natural process, and not a "sure sign that the dead man was in torment, yearning for revenge." Nonetheless, the bloodstained shirt serves as a reminder that, according to local custom, vengeance must be served. Indeed, because Gjorg's brother was regarded as being "in torment, yearning for revenge," Gjorg was left with no option but to avenge him, at least according to his community.
He tried to call to mind families that were not involved in the blood feud, and found no special signs of happiness in them. It even seemed to him that, sheltered from the danger, they hardly knew the value of life, and were only the more unhappy for that.
While walking to the Kulla of Orosh to pay the blood tax, Gjorg ponders the Kanun and the practice of blood feuds. Here, he addresses something of a paradox: that families who are not involved in blood feuds are actually "more unhappy." While one might assume that these families live with more peace and security, Gjorg believes the opposite to be true. The reader has good reason to be skeptical of this claim. We know that Gjorg is miserable and tormented by his impending death. It would certainly be hard to be "more unhappy" than Gjorg is throughout the novel, and to contribute to a relentless cycle of killing hardly demonstrates an understanding of the "value of life." Thus by believing that life is worse for families at peace, Gjorg appears to be justifying his involvement in the blood feuds and coaxing himself into believing that his situation is not as bad as it may seem.
Gjorg noticed that as the penalties came thronging to his imagination, he walked faster, as if he wanted to escape them. The punishments were many: ostracism–the guilty man was segregated forever (debarred from funerals, weddings, and the right to borrow flour); withdrawal of the right to cultivate land, accompanied by the destruction of his fruit tries; enforced fasting within the family...
While walking to the Kulla of Orosh, Gjorg comes across a house that has been burnt as punishment for someone breaking a law according to the Kanun. This prompts him to consider all the other forms of punishment that the Kanun assigns. In this passage, the vast and punitive nature of the Kanun is made clear. There seems to be no end to the kinds of penalties assigned to the most minor of infractions. Thus, it becomes clear that rather than restoring peace and righting wrong deeds, the Kanun only perpetuates the violence and misery in the region. In this way, it conditions citizens to be fearful at all times. Indeed, Gjorg is simply walking down the road but feels as though he needs to "escape" any possible punishments. One could say within reason that the Kanun is authoritarian.
The justicers were the flower of a clan, its marrow, and its chief memorial.
This passage describes the figure of the "justicer," or the one that has been appointed to avenge the death of a family member. The simile is curious – a killer is not often described as being a "flower." Through this simile, Kadaré suggests that violence is honoured, and even celebrated, in the culture that follows the Kanun. In turn, the honouring of killers is what permits the blood feuds to continue. Here, Kadaré is suggesting that the blood feuds will continue until the figure of the "justicer" and the violence they commit is no longer venerated.
"We are entering the shadow-land" he said, as if talking to himself, "the place where the laws of death prevail over the laws of life."
This quotation appears as Bessian and Diana arrive in the High Plateau for their honeymoon. Staring out the window of their carriage, Bessian speaks of the local culture in a fantastical, unrealistic way. For him, the culture of the High Plateau, and the blood feuds in particular, is "tragically beautiful, or wonderfully tragic" (68). From the outset, it is clear that he has idealized this way of life in an unsustainable way. Speaking like this, it is clear that he is due to be disappointed by what he discovers in the High Plateau. Here, Kadaré sets the reader up to anticipate Bessian's impending failure. Indeed, while he claims to have brought Diana to the region to teach her about the local culture, this quotation makes it clear that he is mostly "talking to himself." By the time he leaves the Plateau, he will be "talking to himself" in a different way, because Diana will no longer love him.
The number of killings had fallen year after year, and the first season of the current year had been disastrous.
This passage appears in the fourth chapter which focuses on the character of Mark Ukacierra. In this chapter, the practice of the blood feuds is revealed in a much different light. Indeed, while for Gjorg and his community, the blood feuds are an integral tradition to their way of life, to Mark Ukacierra and the Prince, the blood feuds are merely a way to generate revenue through the blood taxes paid through after each killing. This passage makes it particularly clear that the blood feuds are, in effect, a mechanism of manipulation and control. Indeed, while the falling rate of killings should be something to celebrate, for those like Mark who benefit from the blood feuds, this is "disastrous." So, while Kadaré objects to the blood feuds on a number of grounds–not least because of all the violence–here he critically portrays it as a form of extortion.
He tried to open his eyes, and he could not tell if there were open or not. Instead of his murderer, he saw some white patches of snow that had not yet melted, and among those patches, the black ox, which still had not been sold. This is it, he thought, and really the whole thing has been going on too long.
This passage appears at the end of the novel, as Gjorg lies on the ground after being shot by a member of the Kryeqyqe family. Here, Kadaré offers a masterful, yet tragic, depiction of his protagonist's death. To do so, he returns to the image of patches of snow. This establishes a connection to the opening scene of the novel, in which Gjorg sees the "patches of half-thawed snow" through the scope of his gun as he waits to kill Zef (7). Through this repeated imagery, Kadaré draws a distinct link between Gjorg killing Zef, and Gjorg being killed himself. The image of "patches of snow that had not yet melted" conjures up a number of associations. One could say that the lingering snow suggests that the darkness of winter has not yet passed, just as the darkness of the blood feuds continues. The hope, then, is that there will be a day in which the snow melts and the renewal of spring ushers in a time of peace and amnesty for the people of the High Plateau.
