42 pages • 1 hour read
Khaled HosseiniSea Prayer
Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary
Introducing a new location much closer to the city center, the narrator remembers Homs as a warmer, busier place. First showing what is presumably the grand souk mentioned and then a view of businesses from the street, the illustrations continue to balance broad brushstrokes with more literal line-work. In contrast to the earlier emphasis on green to connect with the natural beauty, these illustrations use more browns, pinks, and oranges. The use of these warmer colors also shows the passage of time as the illustrations transition from summer days to sunsets.
The illustrations now show a lot of people. The setting is described as a “bustling” place, and these figures are different than the previous ones because of their transparency. None are fully saturated in color, and because they do not fill the entire outline, these memories appear shakier. Starting with the Old City, the narrator describes the architecture before the people, replicating a tour of the city. He describes the objects and items for sale in the souk. He reminds Marwan of walks taken with his mother, but he excludes her from the letter by using “we” to only refer to Marwan and himself.
Chapter 4 Summary
This chapter continues the image of the street but cuts it off before reaching the next page. The far right of this illustration is devoid of a lot of color and uses more cool tones than before. These pages use more negative space and isolate the text on a white background to slowly adapt the color palate and imagery. The last image of Homs contrasts with the ensuing blank page. The narrator directly addresses Marwan. He writes on this blank page how this version of Homs seems like a dream, even to him, implying that Marwan has an even harder time accepting that things used to be different.
In this section, figures are now mostly line-work. Marwan’s father admits that his own memory is failing as the strength of his conviction cannot hold Homs in his mind as it was. The figures and backgrounds blend together to form a blue wave of people marching from one corner of the page to another. The narrator struggles to articulate the upheaval that he is describing in Homs. The banners held aloft match the messy handwritten illustrations, and the text of the banners are not easy to read. Most are just the impression of letters or writing.
Chapter 5 Summary
The narrator mentions bombs, then starvation, and then funerals. He doesn’t offer details or further description. Instead, the page is mostly occupied by a dark sky punctuated by dangerous white streaks. At the very bottom, a few silhouettes of buildings are haloed in yellow. It is nighttime in this memory. The narrator is now describing memories that Marwan himself shares, so the narrator does not elaborate much. The city skyline is shown in dampened versions of the earlier color palate. Everything is shown to be distant and far away. While some color blocking is layered, the buildings are not close together anymore. Eventually, with the blue skies peeking out behind the smoke, it is a new day.
Chapters 3-5 Analysis
In the transition into Chapter 4, Hosseini alters the narrator’s diction and style to reflect Failures of Memory. The narrator is both incapable of fully sketching out the experiences as he remembers them but also unwilling at times to be direct with his son. The use of understatements and periods draws attention to the change in narration style. While he continues to focus more on physical objects than people, his shorter phrases jettison the previous list style. His use of detail normally demonstrates affection for the things he has been describing, but here his tone is restrained and cut off. Consider the pondering of “a grand souk for us all / to haggle over gold pendants and / fresh produce and bridal dresses” (15) in Chapter 3. The narrator’s ideas flow from one line to another, creating pauses without abandoning the idea. Chapter 3’s rich diction contrasts the abrupt language of Chapter 5. Here, single words are treated like the entire sentence. The word takes up an entire line and does not easily transition into the next line in the same way that Chapter 3’s enjambment—leaving the “and” as the last word and running a sentence from one line to the next—makes the narration flow. This hesitation emphasizes the events of “Starvation. / Burials” (23). The hard stop of the period makes it visually and emotionally harder to move on.
This change in voice makes the narrator’s admission to Marwan that “these are the things you know” more poignant (25). It acknowledges that everything that came before is lost to Marwan’s memory and these are the events that replaced them. This time in Marwan’s memory is also strikingly devoid of figures, which contrasts with the “bustling” images of Chapter 3. By building up the differences between the narrator and Marwan’s experiences, Hosseini conveys the destruction of Syria even as the narrator struggles to articulate it. Because these ideas are built into the changing voice and contrasting visuals, the letter avoids directly stating that Homs is no longer a safe home while still making it clear to the reader. This choice not to confront Marwan with this information highlights his young age and the emotional protection that the narrator is offering him. As the story converges on the present day, the tension increases as it becomes clearer that there are details that the narrator is unwilling to share.
The difference in Homs between Chapter 3 and Chapter 5 has to do with perspective. Almost all of the vibrant colors have been lost, and the inclusion of cooler grays and blues of the smoke and skies makes the composition less cohesive. The lack of details demonstrates the bombs’ destruction, as does the choice of framing. When the narrator is telling the story, he includes objects in the foreground. The viewer in on the same level as the image. When illustrating Homs after the bombings, it is shown at a distance. The viewer is rendered less able to connect to this place but is instead confronted with the expanse of the destruction.
These are the chapters that include the fastest passage of time as shown through the illustrator’s rendering of a single day. The illustrations mark the changing light and sky to show the passage of time in the story. Traveling from sunset to the blank page through the darkness of night into a smoke-filled morning, Hosseini omits dates and times, making it difficult to match these experiences to any known timeline for the events in Syria. By blending many years into a metaphorical day, the story hinges on ambiguity which foreshadows the ambiguous ending.
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By Khaled Hosseini
