Dirt as a Motif

Throughout the novel, recurring references to and descriptions of dirt act as a motif for anxiety. The narrator opens her account asserting that dirt is her “first hypothesis” for the source of her internal unrest (3). Still adjusting to life in Brooklyn, New York, the narrator is frustrated by the way dirt goes “where nothing else would go” (3). Dirt seems to follow her everywhere and precludes her from appreciating “beautiful things” like “colors” or “birds moving in trees” (3). The dirt clings to every surface and even seems to infiltrate the narrator’s body. Her desperation to rid herself and her environment of this dirt conveys her desire to eradicate her anxiety.

The author uses this dirt imagery to capture the ways in which guilt and shame negatively impact the individual’s psyche. For the narrator, being Palestinian is shameful. She has been taught to...