Partitioning the House (Symbol)
At the beginning of the second section of the novel, the narrator describes how his grandmother's childhood home was partitioned. After a series of increasingly heated disagreements, the family decides that this division is the only way for them to live together without constant conflict. This split effectively makes the house nonfunctional, as it cuts across bathrooms and doorways. The house works as a symbol for political discord, and is an obvious reference to the Partition of India, which split the country into Muslim Pakistan and non-Muslim India and was also the cause of much violence. Like the cities and towns torn apart by civil discord, the house becomes definitively worse as a result of the split.
Freedom (Motif)
Freedom is a motif throughout the novel. The narrator continually describes different characters' struggles to be free. After Robi stops her from dancing in a club, Ila angrily tells the narrator that she lives in England because she cannot truly be "free" in Calcutta. Later, when Robi describes his recurring nightmare of Tridib's death, he says that freedom is a word constantly used by both government representatives and terror groups. He suggests that it is essentially an illusion, repeatedly used to justify acts of horrible violence. The narrator implies, in these moments and others like them, that freedom is an unattainable state and is mostly utilized as a blanket explanation for selfish and cruel choices.
Brick Lane Photographs (Symbol)
In the first part of the novel, the narrator describes some old photographs that Tresawsen was in. He writes about the way that they are posed more formally, as cameras were not treated as casually at the time. He goes on to detail the various relationships between the people in the picture, noting Tridib's memories of living in the house. The narrator ends this section by describing all the emotional content that is not accessible in a photo and adds that almost all of the people in it would die shortly after it was taken. In this way, the photographs function as a symbol of the inaccessibility of the past. They provide only a brief glance at distant figures, offering no means of truly knowing what their life was really like.
Lies (Motif)
Lies are a major motif in the novel. In the first section, the narrator describes how his cousin Ila would exaggerate details about her life to make it seem more glamorous and happy. She makes up stories about being admired by her classmates and rescued from a bully by Nick. Later, in a similar fashion, Nick is dishonest about his work, claiming that he left a job in Kuwait because he felt it was too stagnant. In reality, he was fired after being accused of embezzlement. This motif comes to a head near the novel's conclusion when Ila reveals that Nick has been cheating on her and has relationships with women in different countries. Taken collectively, these moments reveal how lies almost always come crashing down on the person who perpetuates them. By repeatedly trying to construct a happy fictional life for herself, Ila damages her ability to be happy in reality.
Batholomew's Atlas (Symbol)
Batholomew's Atlas is a symbol of the connection between historical events. Near the end of the novel, the narrator discovers an atlas that Tridib gave him when he was younger. He reflects on how far away the cities of Khulna, Dhaka, and Calcutta are from each other. He marvels at how, on the day of Tridib's death, the distance between them was rendered meaningless, as the riots in Khulna precipitated riots in Dhaka and Calcutta. The atlas highlights the way in which these hidden links between major events transcend space.
