25 pages • 50 minutes read
Tayeb SalihA Handful of Dates
Fiction | Short Story | YA | Published in 1964A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Disillusionment With the Adult World
“A Handful of Dates” is a story of disillusionment, following the confusion, pain, and dawning realization of the narrator when he perceives his idolized grandfather’s greed and exploitation of their fellow neighbor.
The narrator’s changing perspective and loyalties highlight this disillusionment. Early in the text, the narrator looks up to his grandfather. He reflects that he “loved him and would imagine [himself], when [he] grew to be a man, tall and slender like him, walking along with great strides” (91). His initial view of manhood is one filled with ideas of power, filled with strength and greatness. The story reveals the narrator’s almost willfully naive view of the world when he states, “I don’t care […] who owns those date palms, those trees or this black, cracked earth—all I know is that it’s the arena for my dreams and my playground” (91). The narrator holds dear his boyish sense of wonder and imagination at the beginning of the text. He also is complicit in the power of his grandfather, working tirelessly to anticipate his every need and to impress him, giving examples of “bringing him his prayer rug,” and filling his drinks without asking, taking joy in reciting the Quran for him (91). This boyhood devotion to his grandfather sets the stage for disillusionment when he comes to learn the true nature of his grandfather later in the story. It is also suggestive of complicity, as the narrator is aware of enjoying a privileged position as his grandfather’s favorite.
As the story goes on, the narrator recounts memories of his neighbor Masood. Here, the reader learns that the narrator has recognized and felt drawn to a different model of adult masculinity, one that includes joy, laughter, and singing. This is the beginning of his disillusionment, as he starts to feel conflict at his grandfather’s desire to buy up Masood’s property and crop, and uneasy at his grandfather’s evident personal vendetta against Masood as someone who inherited wealth. The story sets up a complex web of cause and effect, guilt and complicity, as the narrative structure suggests that the boy’s initial question about Masood spurs the grandfather to humiliate him in front of the boy, as a means to assert his own superiority, and also as a childhood lesson on the grandfather’s model of masculinity. The boy is being taught the ways of the adult world, as the grandfather perceives them. The grandfather’s eyes “sparkle” directly after the boy’s question, when the idea strikes him to take Masood’s dates, an action which he saves until the end of the harvest in order to create maximum effect. The boy’s vomiting of the dates supports this reading, with the boy feeling morally compromised in such a way that he wishes to distance himself from the dates and to reject his complicity in the adult world.
Greed for Riches and Power
Greed and the desire for riches is a driving force for the grandfather and other characters in “A Handful of Dates,” which starkly contrasts Masood’s values. The perception of this contrast is part of the difficult adjustment that the narrator makes during the story.
Land and harvest symbolize richness, and the date symbolizes life and sustenance in Arabic literature and the Quran. The greed for riches and power are at the forefront of this story, as men like the grandfather, the strangers, the merchant, and the neighbor all come together to take the crop from Masood’s land, of which he already sold three-quarters to the grandfather. The taking of the dates appears to be an assertion of power on the grandfather’s part: His statement that Masood owes him £50 does not indicate that the dates are taken in part settlement of the debt but is rather an abuse of his power as a creditor and the most powerful landowner. The dates do not settle the debt; they are essentially stolen and the grandfather is showing Masood that he can do as he pleases.
In addition to the adult male figures in the text, Salih also demonstrates this greed in the actions of the narrator’s peers: “When I again looked at the expanse of ground stretching before me, I saw my young companions swarming like ants around the trunks of the palm trees, gathering up dates and eating most of them” (93). The children “swarm” like pests to take what isn’t theirs, recalling a swarm of insects to evoke a sense of disgust and fear. There is also an inherent sense of a lack of control and power in the face of a swarm, parallel to Masood’s experience in the face of the men coming to collect his crop.
When the narrator learns of the greed of the men, he runs away, feeling as if he “carried within [him] a secret [he wanted to rid himself of” (94). Physically, this is reflected by his sickness. The story evokes sympathy for Masood through the narrator’s dawning perception of injustice in the face of his grandfather’s, and the other men’s, greed for riches and power.
Attitudes to Morality, Generosity, and Cruelty
The story explores perceptions of morality, especially generosity and cruelty in a communal rural society. It presents a divergence of moral perception to drive the boy’s realization of adult behavior and complexity, especially around the grandfather’s justification of his cruelty to Masood and lack of generosity as the more powerful party.
The grandfather presents himself as a hero to his grandson, presenting a moral dichotomy between Masood’s inherited “indolent” wealth and the wealth that the grandfather has accumulated through his deliberate efforts. As the story, progresses, however, the grandfather’s efforts are shown to be vindictive and the narrative sets up a contrast between Masood, who has been born into wealth but prioritizes other things, with the grandfather whose avarice and personal vendetta has brought him power and wealth at the expense of Masood.
The story also suggests early on that the grandfather’s reasoning is suspect, or self-serving, as the boy understands that the grandfather’s argument to discredit Masood doesn’t add up. When the grandfather blames “women” for Masood’s lack of money, saying he is a “much married man” (92), the boy calculates that Masood would have to have married 90 times for this to be the reason when in fact he has three wives and doesn’t appear to live an extravagant life. This detail shows that the grandfather is disingenuous. His reasoning is self-serving, and he perhaps also sees an opportunity to teach his grandson the misogynistic view that women are “something terrible.” This mismatch is the first sign of the boy’s growing realization.
The grandfather’s presentation of morality is a dog-eat-dog world, where those who can take and assert power—ruthless men—are answerable to no one and do not have a responsibility toward those weaker than themselves. The grandfather treats others with disdain and lacks compassion, in contrast to Masood’s more respectful and collaborative approach. The story posits the question of whether the village will be a happier place with the grandfather as the most powerful landowner than it was when Masood held that position.
