18 pages • 36 minutes read
Naomi Shihab NyeGate A-4
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Mamool Cookies
As the older woman becomes more comfortable at the gate, she performs an action which has great symbolic value: “She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool/ cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and/ nuts—from her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate” (Lines 25-27). The poet describes the offering and the partaking of the mamool cookies as a “sacrament” (Line 29), elevating the friendly gesture to a sacred act. In Christianity, a sacrament refers to a ritual which marks the imparting of divine grace, such as a baptism or the ceremony of the Eucharist, in which bread and wine are shared as the body and spirit of Jesus. In the poem, the sacrament represents the sharing of human kindness. The mamool cookies are sweet, crumbly, and powdered with sugar, and these appealing qualities of the cookies represent kindness and hope. The airline’s decision to distribute apple juice to the waiting passengers extends the metaphor, as these small sweet gifts transform the mundane environment of an airport terminal into a scene of grace and transformation.
The Two Little Girls
The little girls who run around the gate serving the apple juice are “covered with powdered sugar” (Lines 33-34) from the mamool cookies, and they represent the ideals of innocence and hope. They are eager to serve the juice, a pleasure everyone can enjoy, demonstrating that they are uncorrupted by the forces of intolerance and division that darken the contemporary world in which they live. The appearance of the girls in the poem enhances the themes of hope and kindness; covered in sugar, they resemble the mamool cookies that function in the poem as a symbol of hope and kindness.
The presence of the two girls also emphasizes the sense of sisterhood that develops amongst the women at the gate. They appear in the poem as young females who want to take part in the women’s gestures of kindness, and their desire to be involved inspires the hope that they will mature into women who will value such acts and perhaps even improve the world in which they live with their generosity.
Gate A4
Gate A4, the gate from which the speaker and her co-passengers are to board their flight, is one of the most important symbols of the poem. At the beginning, the gate represents impatience, frustration, and suspicion, as is the norm when passengers are made to wait for a delayed flight. This aspect of Gate A4 is best represented by the image of the older Palestinian woman crying at the gate, crumpled up on the floor. However, as the narrative advances, Gate A4 begins to expand, metaphorically speaking, from a narrow gate down which individuals travel alone to a “shared world” (Line 39). The expansion of the gate symbolizes the expansion of the worldview of the people at the gate itself, which includes the speaker of the poem, the airline staff, the Palestinian woman, and the passengers. Gradually, all the characters in the poem begin to lose their inhibition and discomfort, and they communicate with each other in a free and open manner. In this sense, Gate A4 also symbolizes the possibility of change. It is a sign to the poet and the reader that despite the tragedies and evils that befall the world at any given moment, all is not lost, and hope still remains.
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By Naomi Shihab Nye
