Darfur
Darfur represents the land of misery characterized by unending conflicts. The conflicts are initiated by politicians and a few wealthy individuals who want to exhaust the available resources with complete disregard. Hari says, "Survivors told us of villages surrounded at night by men with torches and machine guns, the killing of men, women, and children, the burning of people alive in the grass huts of Darfur.”
Great collection of phone numbers
The excellent collection of phone numbers embodies the author's connection inside and outside Sudan. Similarly, this indicates that the narrator is a trusted man who gives credible information about the Darfur war. The narrator writes, "My great collection of phone numbers was the reason many reporters trusted me to take them into Darfur. I do not know how Philp got my cell number in the first place – maybe from the U.S. Embassy, or the U.S. State of Department, or the British Embassy, or the U.N. High Commission for Refugee or from one of the aid organizations or a resistance group.”
The gun’s muzzle
The gun’s muzzle represents Hari’s survival and destiny. When the rebel commander pulls off his finger from the trigger, Hari believes that he will survive the horrific encounter. The narrator writes, “I watched the commander’s finger pet the trigger. The gun muzzle was hot against the temple. Had he fired it recently, or was it just hot from the sun. I decided that if these were about to be my last thoughts, I should try better once instead.”
The translators Landcruiser
The Landcruiser symbolically represents the climatic conditions and landscape. The Landcruiser is described as muddy with dusty. The narrator says, “We were speeding through the hot African desert in a scratched and muddy Land Cruiser that had been much whiter a week earlier. Our driver, a Darfur tribesman like me, was swerving through thorny acacia bushes, working the gears expertly in the deep sands of another and always another ravine which we call a wadi, and sailing over the bumps in the land – there are no roads to speak of.”
The Translator
The title of the book is symbolic to represent revealing the dark secrets of the war. Hari uses his ability to speak and write English to translate to the world what is happening on the ground. The government conceals the dark happenings of Darfur, but it is only Hari who is risking his life to let the world know what is happening through translation. Hari acknowledges that the only way he could risk his life and take part in the war is to use English instead of the gun. The narrator says, "Most of the young men I had grown up with were now dead or fighting in the resistance; I, too, had chosen to risk myself but was using my English instead of a gun."
