Snow

Secrecy and surveillance are a recurring motif in the novel. Muhtar Bey tells Ka that the MIT agents in Kars “have surveillance everywhere” (51-52). The novel repeatedly emphasizes the extent of the surveillance system in Kars. At the supposedly secret meeting at the Hotel Asia, a microphone is hidden in the eye of a fish-shaped lightbulb. Political intrigue, secrecy, and silence characterize the relationship between the government and the people. The people fear the police and avoid any sort of dealings with them.

While considering going to Sheikh Saadettin’s lodge (which is bugged), Ka remembers that the MIT agents would hear him and imagines that they would “never stop laughing” at his heartfelt statements about God and love (213). In the hotel room where they secretly meet, Kadife tells Ka that this is “the only time [they]’ll ever be free in Kars” (219). The characters must constantly watch what they say, as it will likely be intercepted by the secret police. This constant surveillance heightens the atmosphere of fear and paranoia that the coup at the national theater unleashes. Necip even hides his love letters to Kadife in the restroom at the theater because he knows that if he walks into the theater with them, the guards will read them.

Contrasting with the atmosphere of secrecy and intrigue necessitated by the constant surveillance is the broadcast of the performance on the Kars Border Television channel. This induces self-consciousness in the audience in Kars, who worry that “all of Turkey” is watching them (149). This shows how television broadcasting can function as a form of surveillance as well.

Ka’s “charcoal-colored coat” from Frankfurt is a symbol of Ka’s outsider status (3). Its high quality makes him feel both “shame and disquiet” and “a sense of security” in the impoverished Kars (3). Ka’s ambivalent feelings about the coat symbolize his inner conflict between his westernized side and his Turkish identity. The luxurious German coat furnishes him with safety and a sense of superiority in Kars but also prevents him from feeling at home there.

The coat also represents Ka’s upper-middle-class status, and he clutches it protectively when the army comes to pick him up, “smell[ing] the coat to remind himself of Frankfurt” (177). During moments of fear or danger, Ka believes that the coat is a talisman against real harm. In the hotel room where he secretly meets with Kadife, Kadife urges him to remove his coat, but he tells her that “this coat protects [him] from evil” (219). When the narrator finds Ka’s coat after Ka’s death, the narrator realizes it is the only luxurious item that Ka owned.

The “charcoal-colored stray” (340) that inspires Ka’s poem “Dog” is a motif throughout the novel. The fact that the color is the same as Ka’s coat emphasizes the parallels between Ka and the dog. The connection symbolically captures Ka’s sense of being adrift and having no home, just like the dog. The dog is the last living thing that Ka sees when he leaves Kars to return home to Frankfurt on the train. Likewise, the dog is the last thing the narrator sees when he leaves Kars at the very end of the novel: The narrator notes the dog’s “pink tongue hanging from its mouth” and the fact that it “ran happily alongside” the train (426), implying that Ka too may be at peace.