41 pages • 1 hour read
Yasmina KhadraThe Attack
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2005A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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BetaThemes
Radicalism and Fundamentalism
The most dominant theme in the text is an examination of radicalism and fundamentalism. Amin’s journey is an attempt to understand how a seemingly happy and content woman could commit an atrocity that kills so many people. He is forced to consider his surroundings, his history, and himself in the pursuit of answers. Amin is a man as far removed from radicalism as is possible. As he is told by numerous religious and military figures, he has purposefully divested himself of political involvement. Amin’s comfortable life has ensured that he does not need to touch upon the issues that dominate the lives of so many of his people. Numerous characters commit radical acts. Sihem and Wissam both kill themselves in an act of politicized murder; Faten plans to do the same; and Israeli soldiers and operatives of the state overextend their response and commit acts of violence. Amin examines the horrors brought about by radicalism and fundamentalism, but he cannot empathize with the reasoning behind it. He stitches together victims of a bomb attack, but he cannot understand why the bomb was detonated.
However, Amin is not allowed to exist inside his ignorance. Sihem becomes his portal to understanding; if he understands why Sihem acted as she did, then he will better understand radicalism and fundamentalism. By the novel’s end, he has acquainted himself with many of the radicals and fundamentalists he previously could not understand. He finds many in his own family and, when the family home is bulldozed, knows instantly how Faten will respond. Amin becomes the means by which the audience is vicariously shown how people descend into radicalism and fundamentalism, but Amin finds the truth uncomfortable and worrying.
Social Alienation
The racism Amin experiences is frequent and violent. Whether it is a brutal interrogation or Ilan Ros’ movement to have him fired, Amin’s race makes him a target for individuals and state operatives. As these offenses begin to enumerate, Amin finds himself disillusioned with the Israeli state in which he had been so invested. His citizenship and social commendations mean nothing; his race remains the deciding aspect of his existence. While Amin’s status as an Arab alienates him from his Israeli friends, his status as an Israeli citizen distances him from his fellow Arabs. When entering Bethlehem or Palestine, Amin’s reputation proceeds him. He is seen as a spy or a traitor, someone who can never be an Arab. As such, Amin is caught between two worlds. He is too Arab to be an Israeli and too Israeli to be an Arab. To integrate himself, Amin becomes more and more isolated from the world around him.
Sihem’s death plunges Amin into despair. He drinks heavily and loses entire hours and days. The blackouts in his memory coincide with gaps in the novel’s narrative, creating the sense that Amin is becoming detached and alienated from the world around him. During this time, he becomes rude and obnoxious. Purposefully alienating himself, he picks fights and gets arrested. However, Amin has spent his entire adult life alienated. His wealth and privilege have afforded him opportunities that many can only dream of. His family, for instance, remain poor and stuck in Palestine. To succeed, Amin had to leave them behind, alienating himself from his past. At the end of the novel, Amin beings to find a reprieve. He goes home, reintegrating himself in the family, only to see the family home destroyed. Even when he attempts to integrate himself, Amin only finds more alienation and, ultimately, death.
Betrayal
Following the revelation that Sihem was the bomber responsible for the murder of more than a dozen people, Amin struggles to process this reality. He denies her involvement at first before searching for a deeper meaning. His motivation is strong, as he views Sihem’s decision as a betrayal of their love, morality, and way of life. Devastated, Amin can only process his wife’s actions through a selfish lens, viewing them as a personal repudiation of everything Amin believes.
Though Amin has lost the love of his life, her actions demonstrate that Sihem could not have been the woman he thought he knew. Their comfortable existence in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, their regular vacations abroad, their interior design, and every aspect of their existence had been built on a foundation of untruth. While Amin appreciated their lives together, Sihem was not pleased. She seems to have understood this and, in her letter, asks Amin not to hate her, but he cannot. Everything he stands for—his politics, his intelligence, and his ambitions—has brought him to this point in his life. For Sihem to devastate everything he has worked toward feels, to Amin, like the ultimate betrayal.
By visiting the Grand Mosque and the fighters in Palestine, Amin tries to find a religious or an ideological explanation for why Sihem has betrayed him. The philosophies he finds in both are alien to him, so for Sihem to embrace either would be a repudiation of what he believed (and what he thought she believed). When he finds neither of these explanations satisfying, Amin believes he has the answer. He finds pictures of Adel and Sihem together and assumes that Sihem has betrayed their marriage, but Adel eventually dismisses these theories of infidelity. Sihem has left Amin without the ability to understand what has happened—for Amin, an intelligent man and a doctor, he cannot tolerate not knowing.
