Brick Lane

The first image we encounter in this novel is the iron fist that Rubhan feels in her stomach just before the birth of her daughter, Nazneen. This symbol is the iron hand of fate that will determine the girl’s character through her life experience as an immigrant. When the reader encounters this image in the pregnant woman’s stomach, it is a sign of the hardship ahead for the child. She has to endure the pain of her mother’s sudden and tragic early death and then embark on a journey of separation from her homeland.

This symbol frequently enters the novel both in the literal meaning of a woman falling from her window, and metaphorically, with a woman brought low by her sexual behavior. This is a key symbol evoking multiple characters’ reactions to various fallen women. The key thing distinguishing the sisters is that Hasina courts the fallen state through her unstable life and yet is haunted by the specter of her mother as a woman fallen by the three spears in the storeroom.