My Friends Literary Elements

Literary Fiction

The story is set primarily in the United Kingdom, where the protagonist Khaled lives in exile during the Qaddafi regime in Libya.

The novel uses a first-person perspective.

The tone is melancholic and contemplative. The mood fluctuates between feelings of loneliness, nostalgia, and yearning.

The protagonist is Khaled. The antagonist is the repressive political regime in Libya.

Khaled grapples with the challenges of exile and the complexities of his friendships. There is also a political conflict, as he and his friends face the dangers of opposing the Libyan dictatorship. This is heightened by the characters’ differing approaches to survival and activism.

The climax occurs when the protagonist reflects on his experience of being shot.

Subtle mentions of political dangers in the early sections foreshadow the eventual escalation of risks faced by Khaled and his friends as the Arab Spring unfolds.

Khaled describes his emotional turmoil in an understated way. An example is how he refers to the absence of his homeland as a mere "discomfort."

The novel alludes to Libya’s history, particularly under the Qaddafi regime.

The novel uses rich imagery to describe scenes vividly, such as the description of the hospital setting and the nurse’s beauty: "Her cheeks, lips, and ears turned a deeper pink whenever she was tired or rushed off her feet. When she smiled, most of the action took place in her eyes. At certain times, thinking me asleep, she would gently tuck in my bedsheet like a skilled cook filleting a fish."

Khaled’s love for his homeland contrasts with his inability to return.

There is parallelism in Khaled’s reflections on friendship and exile. As he contemplates both, he recognizes the similarities between the loss of home and the fraying of friendships.

N/A

“The way sunflowers follow the sun.”

The statement personifies the sunflowers.