Island of a Thousand Mirrors

“She has been brought up with definite ideas about the value of each thing and person, its significance and appropriate place on a strict hierarchy. She is unable to tolerate this laxity, her husband’s inability or indeed conscious decision not to treat each person according to ancient laws.”

Foundations of cyclical resentment are established early in the novel. Beatrice Muriel adheres to remnants of colonial order. She values people based upon class, caste, and skin color. The tension between Beatrice Muriel and her husband sets an early foundation for parallel tensions in future relationships in her grandchildren’s lives.

“Of the two races on this island, we Sinhala are Aryans and the Tamils are Dravidians. This island is ours, given to us from the Buddha’s own hand long, long before they came. And now they have come and we are forced to share this place. But really it belongs to us.” 

This history of the island depicts opposing races locked in conflict. When Mala challenges the notion that one race holds rights over the other, the fisherman Seeni Banda warns that the Tamil “will force us bit by bit into the sea” (24). This version of the island’s history frightens the children, sowing seeds of suspicion toward their Tamil schoolmates. In this way, ethnic tensions are passed from one generation to the next, deepening the divide between the island’s Sinhala and Tamil populations.

“She realizes that perhaps Alice, too, has experienced this sickness, been bereft of love and heartsick sometime in the past, that they are united by the knowledge of loss.” 

Women play prominent and supporting character roles in the novel. What unites them is the experience of loss. The loss of loved ones crosses divisions of class, race, ethnicity, politics, and geography, although the more privileged women don’t recognize this commonality until they’ve experienced heartache themselves.

“When the jubilation has subsided, it is noted that Mala, too, has passed.” 

This captures how Mala is cast aside throughout the novel. Despite her academic ability to earn a university seat, despite her athletic ability to dominate the neighborhood boys in a cricket match, and despite her growing beauty, Mala’s family looks at her as a burden who will be difficult to marry off because of her darker skin tone. In some ways, being overlooked suits Mala, as she can enjoy exploring the island without the expectation of perfect test scores the next morning, and she faces less resistance when she decides to accept a husband of her own choosing.

“The strange timing of our birth allows us entry into each other’s families in the most intimate ways since the two women, previously rivals, now seek out the comfort of each other’s company.”

Yasodhara and Shiva’s mothers repeat the patterns of the past and foreshadow the continued cycle ahead in the story. Tensions between the upstairs Tamil family and the downstairs Sinhala family play out at the individual level between Visaka and Ravan, but the births of their children allows the women to bond over their shared experience of happiness and discovery through motherhood. Tensions over ethnicity and a shared lover make them unintentional rivals, but the shared experience of childbirth brings them together despite their ethnic differences. This momentary domestic bliss across ethnicities is repeated when Yasodhara and Shiva grow up to eventually marry and have a child together.

“It was the first time we knew without question that we were different, separate, and that this difference was as wide as the ocean.” 

Sylvia Sunethra reinforces a violent separation of Tamil and Sinhala when she strikes Shiva. Her use of violence in the domestic sphere parallels the greater atmosphere of violence surrounding the characters. Although suicide bombing is largely associated with the Tamil Tiger forces later in the story, this incident is a crucial reminder that both sides—Sinhala and Tamil—are guilty of violence toward one another.

“It is only later that I understand her ferocious rage at the idea of being bought, of being wed despite the dictates of her own wildly beating heart.” 

Yasodhara and Lanka do not understand their mother’s resentment toward their father when they are children. Once they experience heartache and loss of their own, though, they come to understand the feelings of resentment and rage that caused their mother to cast unkind and undercutting looks at their father so often. Like her aunt Mala, Yasodhara eventually breaks this cycle of class resentment in marriage when she pursues a relationship with Shiva rather than returning to her arranged marriage.

“The night is always loud with jungle creatures. The gunshot exclamation of a crocodile’s jaw cracking through turtle shell, the crash of musth-dripping bull elephant, the yellow-lit eyes of a hunting leopard.”

The imagery of the setting is described in war-like terms of gunshots, cracked shells, and hunters. The diction warns of the hidden dangers of an otherwise beautiful island setting. Yasodhara is intrigued by these descriptions in Alice’s stories, but she is too young and naive at this point in the story to realize this danger lurks on the other side of her own walls too.

“There are now two camps. In one our mother, in the other Mala and Beatrice Muriel, and between these two camps the sort of subtle rivalry between women who lay claim to the same man.” 

Rivalries ripple through families and repeat over generations. Tension is created in the novel through ongoing rivalries at both the family and the national level, creating a sense that conflict cannot be avoided. Even Mala’s garden, which is where the children go to escape the tension among adults, becomes a burial ground for her own child later in the novel, foreshadowing that even the most sacred places of refuge are not safe from the impact of battle.

“He hasn’t done anything. But they are Tamil. Not like us. Different.” 

Yasodhara grows up hearing from her grandmother that Tamil people—including her neighbor and friend Shiva—are inherently different. Ironically, Yasodhara’s family will face these same criticisms for their different skin color and culture when they immigrate to the United States, leading them to experience the other side of this discrimination Silvia Sunethra has pushed upon Shiva since childhood. Mala, though, serves as a contrast to Sylvia Sunethra’s insistent racism, giving Yasodhara and Lanka a subtle yet ongoing alternative example throughout the story.

“Instead we find them in the in-between no-man’s-land of darkened hallways, laughing together and touching often.” 

Mala is a foil to many characters in the family, offering Yasodhara and Lanka an alternative example of what happiness and success look like. Mala attends university, has an exceptional ability to grow and maintain a beautiful garden, and has a loving relationship with a husband she chose for herself. She challenges racism and tradition within her family, and her marriage is genuinely happy, laying the foundation for Yasodhara and Lanka to eventually follow similar paths in love.

“It is all profoundly quiet, profoundly lonely.”

Yasodhara frequently captures the loneliness associated with migration. Los Angeles is cold and impersonal compared to the familiarity of the Wellawatte house in Sri Lanka, and the growing sense of isolation recurs at an emotional level as Yasodhara grows into adulthood. Yasodhara gradually acclimates to life in America, but her feelings of otherness recur in her marriage when she realizes that her husband has another love-based relationship. When she visits Lanka in Sri Lanka as an adult, Yasodhara again finds herself watching others in love as an outsider.

“We step in and instantly the water cuts at our ankles like a hundred shiny liver blades.”

Yasodhara and Lanka grow up learning how to navigate tropical waters. They are betrayed by the chilly waters of the California coast. Yasodhara’s description of the water like blades echoes the earlier imagery of shattered mirrors surrounding Nishan and foreshadows Saraswathi’s description of a thousand broken bottles.

“Inside, La and I stifle giggles. She thinks we are Indians. We have never even been to India!” 

The family goes from being the landlords of the Wellawatte house to being the foreign tenants in a small American apartment, effectively forcing them to experience the other perspective of their previous living situation. Their landlord does not know anything about their culture, and the extent of her ignorance makes her a comical character, serving to lighten the mood after a period of rising tensions among members of the Rajasinghe family.

“Just moments earlier she had been just another nameless woman in the teeming crowd; now, blown to bits, she was either martyr or mass murderer, according to one’s taste.” 

Foreshadowing of the novel’s climax is layered into the story’s rising action. News of suicide bombings in Sri Lanka paired with Yasodhara’s dream of a female suicide bomber hint that this violence will get closer to the narrator as the story progresses. This far away from the war, Yasodhara understands that the bombers are looked upon as martyrs by some and murderers by others, but her outlook is solidified when her sister is killed in a suicide bombing at the novel’s climax.

“In a few years, these children will be wearing jeans, their mothers will be perfectly coiffed, and their fathers will smell of cologne. But for now we keep our distance lest the aura of foreignness so laboriously shed rubs off on us.” 

The cycle of migration and assimilation repeats as more family members flee the increasing violence of the civil war in Sri Lanka. Yasodhara’s immediate family has overcome the initial hurdles of migrating to a new and foreign country. They have already learned that dress, hairstyle, and hygiene are quick indicators of otherness in American society. The same things that make Yasodhara fit into American culture as she gets older will make her stand out as a foreigner when she returns to Sri Lanka as an adult.

“It is the dry season here in the northern war zone of Sri Lanka, and the lagoon reflects sunlight like the shards of a thousand broken bottles.” 

Saraswathi’s perspective is immediately a foil to that of Yasodhara in Part 1. She grows up in the northern Tamil region of Sri Lanka, whereas Yasodhara grows up in the southern region closer to Colombo. In both areas, ethnic violence is present, although Saraswathi witnesses and experiences violence first-hand. Saraswathi’s perspective highlights the privileged position that Yasodhara’s family has enjoyed as part of the Sinhala majority, and especially as a family with the economic means to escape the island when the violence gets closer to their home. While Yasodhara grows up envisioning her home as an island of a thousand mirrors reflecting brightness and clarity, Saraswathi grows up on the same island and experiences those same reflections as shards of broken glass.

“Sometimes I get this breathless feeling that the war is a living creature, something huge, with a pointed tongue and wicked claws. When the tanks rumble past in the far fields, I feel it breathe; when the air strikes start and the blood flows, I feel it lick its lips.” 

Saraswathi paints a much more devastating picture of life in Sri Lanka than Yasodhara does. There are hints at Yasodhara’s privilege throughout Part 1, but the stark contrast with Saraswathi’s upbringing highlights the advantages of location, ethnicity, and education that Yasodhara has naively enjoyed. Yasodhara’s family avoids and ultimately escapes the violence of the civil war, but Saraswathi’s family never has a chance to know anything but war.

“If you stay here, one day, either the soldiers or the Tigers will come.” 

Saraswathi’s father offers a chilling warning that foreshadows his daughter’s fate. The Tigers come first, attempting to recruit Saraswathi from her home. The soldiers prove to be the worst of the two forces for Saraswathi, who quickly finds refuge with the Tigers in response. Her father is concerned that she’ll be taken by one of the two sides, but instead she falls a victim to both.

“Think, my girl. What will you do here? What man will take what the soldiers have spoiled? Who will give their son for your sister? If you don’t go, you will ruin us all.” 

Saraswathi’s mother calmly explains what must happen after Saraswathi is sexually assaulted: She must now join the Tamil Tigers to save her reputation and that of her family. This brings Saraswathi to finally understand the full weight of what it means to be spoiled—not even her mother wants to keep her. Saraswathi’s isolation parallels Yasodhara’s, although in a much more tragic way.

“They should have killed me, but they didn’t, and that is their mistake.” 

Saraswathi experiences significant character development upon joining the Tamil Tigers. After being sexually assaulted, she goes through a period of confusion as she comes to terms with what has happened to her. She eventually realizes that she can no longer pursue the life she had envisioned for herself as a village schoolteacher. Instead of giving up and committing suicide, though, she turns her experience into motivation for revenge against Sinhala soldiers.

“I am fearless. I am free. Now, I am the predator.”

Saraswathi’s transformation is complete when she graduates from Tiger training. She is no longer defined as a victim but instead has become someone to be feared. In this way, Saraswathi takes back control of her fate and ownership of her body.

“They wanted clear distinctions between the cowboys and the Indians, the corrupt administration and the valiant freedom fighters, the democratic government and the raging terrorists. They want moral certainty, a thing I cannot give them.” 

This novel explores characters on both sides of the Sri Lankan Civil War, as well as those stuck between sides and those watching from afar. In developing and portraying complex characters and histories on both sides, the author avoids assigning blame or siding with just one. The story, like Yasodhara, doesn’t attempt to offer simple answers to such complex questions.